


Took an Oath Imma Stick it Out 'Til the End

by SunshineFlower345



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Christine has a Squip, Alternate Universe - College/University, Everyone else went to different ones, M/M, Michael Christine Jeremy and Rich all went to one high school, and a bunch of one sided crushes I didn't want to tag either XD, are in and around every scene quoting vines, but please assume the casts of mean girls and the lighting thief, there's also some Evan/Connor/Jared but I didn't think it was enough to tag the ship, they're never mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-01-31 12:29:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18591301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunshineFlower345/pseuds/SunshineFlower345
Summary: You know how sometimes, at the end of a long story driven video game, you'll get that one choice? The choice to turn on all your allies and go be evil, to burn down the village, the choice to be what you'd spent the last 60 hours of game play trying to defeat. And the choice is so antithetical to the game's narrative and themes that even being given it draws you out of the experience, because you know the hero would never consider it, and yet you have the choice.Yeah, that was the choice Michael made.





	1. “All Because of you, I haven’t slept in so long, when I do I dream of drowning in the ocean,”

**Author's Note:**

> Umbrella, Rihanna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Good Left Undone, Rise Against

_Michael was backstage in the school theater, holding a bottle of flat soda and watching his former friend make his best impression of a snake on the ground. Michael found himself here often, maybe this time it could end differently._

_“Really?! Is it that hard to say sorry?” Michael hissed._

_Jeremy made another half-word, half-noise that Michael assumed was supposed to be a ‘Yes!’. Michael’s grip on the old plastic tightened._

_“C’mon man! This is important!”_

_Michael knew he was approaching his last straw, “Well this is important to me!” He yelled._

_“It’s a word!” Jeremy snapped, seemingly having perfect control of his mouth when it was to criticize Michael._

_“It’s a Gesture! Gestures matter!” Michael retorted, not paying any mind that Jeremy’s gestures seemed to show someone in pain and fighting something within, something Michael was supposed to be helping with._

_All that went up in flames however, when Jeremy lunged at Michael and tried to punch him. “This is so you!” Jeremy snarled. “You love to feel superior! Just because you listen to music on vinyl and eat eel on your sushi and don’t care about being popular!”_

_Yeah, that was the last straw for Michael, if Jeremy wanted to fight below the belt, so would he, “At least I have a personality!” He yelled. “I don’t need to cling to the first person I see and have them dictate what I do and don’t like!” Jeremy stilled at that and Michael unscrewed the cap on the Mountain Dew Red, pouring it everywhere on the play costumes and props._

_Michael took one last look before flipping Jeremy off and turning around to leave, fuck whatever promises he’d made to Mr. Heere._

**BANG!**

_Jeremy must have punched the wall or something, what an immature reaction. Had that been his reaction when this really happened?_

**BANG!**

**CRASH!**

“Connor!”

Michael’s eyes shot open and he rolled over on his side, trying to rid himself of the vertigo that came with being ripped awake from a dream. Not that he minded this once, he hadn’t wanted to stay in that memory a moment longer than he had to. Thinking of that time in high school was useless, it was almost three years ago now, he couldn’t take that decision back. But that didn’t stop his mind from plaguing him with that stupid reoccurring dream.

Michael dug around in his blankets to find his glasses, he really needed to stop wearing them to bed. Climbing down off the bunk bed he noticed that his roommate and his roommate’s boyfriend had gotten seriously quiet after that outburst, which didn’t bode well for the state of the living room.

When he walked out of his room everything looked fine. Except for the sheer terror that rested on Evan’s face when Michael exited the bedroom.

“We didn’t break anything,” Came Connor’s voice before Michael could even ask. As Michael walked farther into the living room he saw that they had, somehow, taken one of the shelf’s supports out. books were scattered all over the apartment floor.

“Are you, sure?” Michael asked looking at the two of them with a skeptical brow. Maybe he’d have cared more if it had been the shelf with his games, but it had been the one with all of Connor’s super dense novels. Connor just waved him off as Michael sighed and moved to get himself something for breakfast.

“What were you two doing anyway?” He asked to Evan. The other boy looked at him in a panic for a second before gasping like he remembered something and signaling Michael to be quiet. Michael didn’t care to be caught between those two when they fought, Jared was the only one who could stop them once they got going.

He took a bite of his bread as Evan reached around Connor and grabbed something off his body. Connor cursed and dropped the Shelf plank he’d been trying to level. Another crash rang out in the apartment.

“Hey!”

“Got it!” Evan spun around, holding a lighter in his hands. So that was what they’d been fighting about. Last year, Connor had been thrown out of the college dorms after he’d been caught smoking. Evan had made it his personal project to get his boyfriend to stop after that.

Michael wouldn’t have minded, except that he’d been made part of that project when he moved in with Connor.

“Geez Ev, what if we actually need to light something?” Connor asked, shelf forgotten. He pulled his boyfriend into a hug. Just a poor attempt to grab the lighter from Evan, Michael thought.

“then you can buy more, like you’ve clearly been doing,” Evan gave his boyfriend a glance and Connor unwound himself in a huff. Connor turned around and headed into the shared bedroom, grumbling that he needed to get ready for school.

“So, uh, Mi- Michael,” Evan started to fill the silence with pointless small talk. It always bothered Michael that some people couldn’t handle silence in their own heads, that _some people_ would go to extremes to make sure that the silence was filled with something, anything. Even take an evil pill that made people change everything about themselves.

Michael let out a long sigh, he couldn’t keep pushing his anger at Jeremy onto the nearest boy with a stutter. Evan was a good person who just wanted the best for the people he loved. Michael tried to force the hostility out of his voice. “Yeah? ‘Sup?”

“I guess I just, uh, what are your plans for today?” Evan finally got out and Michael thought about the question.

“Hadn’t really thought about it,” Michael sighed. “Course, I have class but after that?” Michael knew he never got anything done on days he woke up from that dream, he spent them stewing in self loathing and fearing seeing a certain boy in the corner of his eye.

He still had no idea what had possessed Jeremy Rich and Christine to go to the same college he had. He would have thought their Squips would have wanted them in some Ivy league school. That’s what Dustin always said in their senior year at high school.

Dustin had been in the drama club with Christine when she’d taken her Squip. He and Michael had drifted close together after bonding over the fact they were the two kids in the school who both knew what Squips were and hadn’t taken them.

 

_It was a month into Senior year and Dustin had finally asked Michael if they were going out or not. They’d been close since the events of junior year, and at least to Michael it felt good to be moving past those events._

_“Hey Michael, there’s uh, there’s just one thing I never told you…” Dustin stuttered as Michael held open the door to the theater, they were the only ones who hung out there regularly during lunch. The Rest of the drama club consisted of four freshmen Michael couldn’t tell apart for the life of him._

_Michael almost cracked a joke about having seen Dustin’s internet history already, but he must have been expecting that from the way he shot a pleading look in Michael’s direction. “How serious is it then?” Michael asked and sat down in one of the theater chairs._

_“It’s just it’s about the, you know,” Dustin trailed off and Michael sighed, patting the seat next to his. Dustin seemed to not be fond of referring to the Squip by name, like it would summon the things. “Before I met Chris, back in freshmen year I might’ve, been friends with Rich,” Dustin finally confessed._

_Michael sat there and processed the information. Sure he’d assumed Dustin had some kind of history with the robots, as he’d known basically everything Michael did when they’d first talked about it, but that was still startling._

_“Well I mean, I’m certainly never going to run off and take one of those things, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Michael said with a laugh. Joking kept the mood light. Kept the conversation from diving too far into talking about genuine emotion._

_Dustin looked at him in utter confusion for a second before laughing and resting his head on Michael’s shoulder. “I’ll hold you to that then, the Squips, they won’t ever be satisfied with what they have, someday they’ll destroy themselves because of that. It’s just a matter of making sure they don’t take their hosts with them.” Michael could feel Dustin’s grip on his arm tightening._

_“Or,” Michael spoke. “We could focus on what we have control over.”_

_Dustin raised his head and looked at Michael in confusion._

_“Like Romeo and Juliet, with vampires,” Michael said and waved the script Mr. Reyes had given him that morning. “We need to figure out how the lighting’s gonna work in the new scenes.” Dustin looked like he wanted to comment on something but kept listening to Michael speak about changing color filaments mid play._

 

Michael shook his head a little, they hadn’t been together too long before it all came crashing down on the both of them. He assumed that’s just what happens when you base a relationship on mutual sadness.

But Dustin was not someone he wanted to be thinking about right now, neither was Jeremy for that matter. So he focused on Evan, who took that as a cue to start stuttering again.

“Uh, well,” Evan looked side to side like he was scanning for a way out of the conversation. “I guess, what I mean is, I mean, after class today we were, oh! Me, Connor and Jared were,”

“You’re coming to the movies with the three of us,” Connor cut his boyfriend off, now fully dressed and his bag slung over one shoulder. “We’ve already bought your ticket.”

Michael pouted, he didn’t like when people made decisions for him. “Look, I’d rather not be a fourth wheel,” and suddenly the sting of having been thinking about his ex hurt a bit more. Michael just bit his tongue. No more thinking about Dustin!

“It’s uh, it’s just that,” Evan started to speak up. “You spend all your time in your room. And, when you aren’t, you spend all your time, fretting over those pop-popular kids,” Evan finished as Connor rose an arm to put a hand on his back. “Alana’s worried about you, we all are.”

Michael took a second to realize who Evan was referring to when he said ‘those popular kids.’ But Michael got it eventually, and boy was that something to think about.

To Connor, Jared and Evan, Jeremy and his group were nothing but popular kids. They didn’t understand the circumstances behind their popularity, or why Michael was so ‘obsessed’ with them. To them, Michael was just some obsessed stalker who went to the same high school with the popular kids at college.

Thinking of it that way, Michael sort of understood why they’d invited him along on their date.

“We already spent the money so you’re coming, even if Jared and I have to drag you,” Connor threatened, and that earned him a scolding from Evan. the two of them started to head out, since Evan had a class in the block before Connor and Michael.

“Alright then, sounds fun as long as none of you start snogging,” Michael called after the two of them and laughed to himself when Evan froze up and Connor had to keep dragging him forward while using his other hand to flip Michael off.

Well then, Michael supposed that he had to get ready to go to school. He moved to head to the bathroom to get his contacts in. After all that, he really wanted to smoke something and skip all his classes, but he knew better than to even try to find a lighter or match box. There was a reason for Evan’s daily house calls after all.

 

Seven AM, and Jeremy was up before his phone even started vibrating with his alarm. He reached over and turned the chiming sounds off. But after a second to think he looked over to Rich’s sleeping form.

 _“Why hasn’t his Squip gotten him up yet?”_ Jeremy asked in his head. The Squip’s avatar materialized next to him with its arms crossed and a wide smirk on it’s face.

 _“Because, I assume, it knows he has friends who will help with that,”_ The Squip said and Jeremy looked down at his phone before turning the volume to max. This was payback for the time Rich dumped a cup of beer on Jeremy’s head at the homecoming party last month.

Jeremy set an alarm to go off in the next minute and sat back on his bed as he waited for the time bomb he’d set. He was bored within ten seconds, he should have just set a timer instead. He rolled his head and looked around the dorm room he shared with Rich. The two of them managed to keep it pretty clean compared to the other dorms he’d seen in his time here.

The only notable things they had on the wall were their educational plans and their high school diplomas, hanging on opposite walls, perfectly symmetrical. The few posters they had were all tasteful and Rich even had his NASA poster framed, nothing like what you’d see in other dorms were they were all taped to the wall in random ways. They also had a shared bookshelf they kept their textbooks on along with the few novels the Squip would let them buy.

Everything looked so boring and white, like someone with minimal understanding of the two of them had decorated the room. Though, Jeremy thought that wasn’t too far from the truth, he and Rich really didn’t know who they were.

 _“Twenty seconds left,”_ the Squip said.

 _“yeah, yeah,”_ Jeremy thought at the machine. _“I know when it’s going off, I set it.”_

 _“I’m just letting you know since you insisted on watching and not using this time productively,”_ the Squip gave a pointed glare. Jeremy decided to drop it, not wanting to get shocked too much this morning.

A few beats later, and the dorm was filled with music muffled by Rich’s blankets. “God. Fucking,” Rich grumbled as he tried to reach for his phone to turn the noise off. Jeremy choked down a laugh. “Damn it Tallass!” He yelled when he finally found Jeremy’s phone.

“Happy Monday!” Jeremy replied without missing a beat. “Let’s go see if we can’t catch Chris before class!”

Rich just grumbled before shuffling into the bathroom. Jeremy laughed again as he left. It was still so surreal to him that he’d managed to befriend his high school bully, and that was highlighted every single time Jeremy got away with playing pranks on him. He also had to be grateful there was a decent person hidden under the bully persona Rich put on. He really was lucky.

 _“Well it wasn’t just your winning personality that got you all this,”_ the Squip had moved its avatar to whisper the statement into Jeremy’s ear. It made Jeremy’s skin crawl. _“Don’t forget who you owe all this to.”_

 _“Yeah I know that already!”_ Jeremy thought angrily, scrambling to get away from the Squip. Before the Squip replied, Jeremy felt a sharp pain rip through his back.

 _“Sit up straight, would you? Slouching makes you look like a sad loner,”_ the Squip dropped the conversation and Jeremy cursed before getting up to dress himself.

“Ready to face the day?” Rich asked when he came out of their bathroom more or less fully dressed.

Jeremy took a breath before replying, “Ready as I’ll ever be,”

“Damn straight,” Rich laughed and opened their front door, releasing them from the silence that plagued their dorm room.

The thing about Rich and Jeremy, and Christine as well, was they weren’t just popular, their lives were designed to be the most popular. That meant from the time they opened their door in the morning to when they closed it at night, they were all acting. Christine didn’t even really get the break at night because she stayed in the sorority.    

Jeremy was their smart kid, president of the math club since the start of the year because the old one graduated. It had upset some of the members, a girl named Alana specifically, but he was doing his best no one could really protest. It was his job to keep the nerdy and smart cliques on their good side.

Rich was a receiver on the college’s football team, it was his job to stay on the good side of the more macho guys. He never let it get to him that most football players were at least six feet tall, though Jeremy could definitely attribute a raise in the number of times Rich called him “Tallass” to how well or bad the football team was doing at the time.

Jeremy’s girlfriend Christine had most of the female population down. She was a cheerleader as well as a member of a popular sorority on campus. She regularly talked people out of thinking that cheerleading was sexist. She would joke that she could have done Jeremy and Rich’s jobs on her own, and he believed it, she was their best actor.

And of course, none of their real feelings mattered. Not that Jeremy hated leadership roles, or that Rich hated running or that Christine hated wearing anything that cut off before her knees. Jeremy doubted that the general student population would even care if they found out that he and his friends would be shocked into submission if they even thought that for too long.

“Well here we are,” Rich laughed when they walked up to Christine’s sorority. She came running out the door before either of them could even get their phones out to let her know they were there.

“Jeremy! Rich!” She called and pulled both of them into a hug. And then she froze. Right Jeremy thought, he and Christine weren’t allowed to touch each other without permission. That was a rule the Squips started enforcing when the two first started going out. It killed any real romance that existed between the two.

Christine pulled back and forced a smile on her face. “Anyway! Let’s go!”

“So Chris?” Rich asked in an attempt to get the mood back to normal. “How are things going with the freshmen cheerleaders?” Jeremy listened to them talk with a smile on his face, the sounds of his two friends voice were always calming for him.

“Oh! Yeah! We’ve got some real talent this year! They’ve basically completely blended into the team!” she smiled, Rich sighed.

“Oh well good for you, the coach keeps insisting our freshmen need more drills so that means the whole team has to.”

“Well sorry I guess we stole all the talent from you this year!” Christine teased and Rich jokingly punched her shoulder. People were looking at them now. They were at the quad, and that meant it was time to act. Jeremy tried to ignore the Squip nodding along in the corner of his eye.

“Hey! Rich, have you no pride hitting a woman?” Jeremy raised his voice in with a light tone.

“Nah, I have pride, I hit Chris because she can take it, I’ve never hit you now have I?” Rich retorted and Christine laughed into her hand.

“I resent that,” Jeremy replied.

“Jere, Honey, I appreciate you’re trying to defend my honor or something,” Christine said and gently put her hands on Jeremy’s coat, he could feel her fake nails through the fabric. “But please, don’t try and act like you can take Rich in a fight. I don’t want to see you hurt,” she gave him a very convincing pout. And Jeremy wanted to laugh and defuse the situation.

 _“Tell her it’s okay if she asks and kiss her,”_ The Squip snapped and Jeremy didn’t feel very rebellious today.

“Well alright since you asked,” He said and quickly planted a chaste kiss on Christine’s lips. Rich laughed as he walked over to the two of them and the small crowd that had gathered started to disperse after cheering for the kiss.

“Ah! My makeup!” Christine said when she pulled away.

“Huh?” Jeremy asked until Rich held up his phone, Jeremy had taken nearly all of Christine’s lipstick off in the kiss. They hadn’t moved too much during it, so it almost looked like it’d been applied to his face instead.

Jeremy just found the fact funny, but the Squip shocked him all the same. _“There’s nothing funny about being a sissy is there Jeremy? Tell her she doesn’t need to wear makeup for you”_

“Here,” Christine handed him a makeup wipe from her bag as she pulled out her lipstick tube. “I’m sorry I thought it already set.”

“Hey, I mean I’ll always kiss you, makeup or not,” Jeremy replied.

Christine sighed, “Now if only you really meant that,” She said and two girls who been passing through agreed. Christine popped her lips to say that she was done re-applying her makeup as Jeremy bitterly thought that he’d fallen for her in high school when she’d never worn the stuff.

 _“But you’d never have been able to date her had she not taken the Squip,”_ The Squip thought at him, going after the exact thing Jeremy felt worst about. _“It’s the same concept, really.”_

“Hey Dudes! And Dudette, I’m not interrupting anything am I?”  A voice called out to them and they looked up to see their friend.

“Jake! Thank god! Save me from the love birds!” Rich yelled and high fived the boy who walked over. Jake was the next closest friend any of them had beyond each other. They met during their freshmen years at the college.

The boy didn’t have a Squip, but he really had no need for one. He was on the football team with Rich as well as in the math club with Jeremy. As well as at least three other extracurriculars that Jeremy had never been able to keep track of. Jeremy’s Squip would always hold Jake up as an example that it was physically possible to be perfect.

“Hey Jake, what’s up?” Jeremy asked pleasantly as Christine bounced at his side for a few seconds before taking the makeup wipe out of his hand and going at his face herself. “Gah! Chris!”

“Sorry! But you only made it worse!” she said rubbing the alcohol drenched napkin into Jeremy’s face with painful force.

“Hey so I’ve been meaning to ask,” Jake said and scratched the back of his head.

Christine judged Jeremy’s face clean and stopped attacking him. “Yeah what’s up?” She asked.

“Ah, it’s just, you guys went to high school with someone named Michael Mell, right?”

They all froze at that, Jeremy especially. Had he messed up the last time he was drunk? He knew that he spent too much of his time without the Squip present talking about his old friend, but he had always been careful not to say his last name.

 _“I don’t believe that anything you do can be considered careful Jeremy, careful would be letting the past go,”_ The Squip said in a cold tone right by his ear. _“Well, it’s probably for the best that we not lie about this one, say that you were in the same grade.”_

“Uh, yeah. I’m pretty sure that he was in our graduating class. Why?” Jeremy said and tried not to sound like he was lying, whatever that sounded like.

_“Your voice goes up, you talk too fast, I could go on.”_

_“Please don’t,”_ Jeremy snapped at the Squip.

“Yeah uh, it’s just, my friend- er, well, my acquaintance, wants to interview him about something for her research class.”

“What’s she researching? Negative effects of weed on the developing brain?” Rich laughed at his own joke when no one else did.

“It’s got something to do with drugs, I think,” Jake replied after an uncharacteristic pause. “Anyway, I have no idea how she found out, but she knew I had friends who knew him and asked me to set up a meeting.”

“She’s better off asking him cold,” Jeremy said instantly. “He doesn’t like us.”

 _“And now he’s definitely going to make the connection to your pathetic drunk whining,”_ Jeremy grit his teeth to stop thinking about turning around and swatting the empty air where his Squip projected itself. It wasn’t fair that the Squip could touch him but not the other way around.

“Yeah, well, can you guys at least try?” Jake pled. And then gave Jeremy a slip of paper with some numbers on it. “Just uh, give that to Michael and say that someone really wants to talk to him okay?”

And with that Jake was running away to deal with some people from the speech and debate team, which he was also on, Jeremy remembered. Jeremy looked down at the girl’s number that he’d been given.

“Great, I don’t want to fail Jake but, I don’t think I’ll be able to find Michael,” Jeremy laughed. The Squip told him that he’d need to be looking directly at what was being blocked to unblock it, so Jeremy had given up seeing Michael again anytime soon. Even though he thought it was just an excuse on the Squip’s part.

 _“Not an excuse per say, but simply pointing out that it’s too much work for nothing good,”_ The Squip defended. So it was totally an excuse. Jeremy had been braced for the incoming shock, it was worth it to annoy the Squip.

“Well actually,” Christine said, “He’s sitting under that tree reading. It’d be pretty simple to go give it to him.”

Jeremy turned around and looked over the quad, and sure enough he identified the tree Christine was pointing at, though nobody was reading under it.

 _“Alright, this is a favor for Jake, that’s worth it right?”_ Jeremy thought annoyed at the Squip.

He could feel the machine rolling its avatar’s eyes at him as he stayed focused on the spot under the tree.

_“Alright, but you know he’s not going to be happy to see you. Why would he be?”_

_“That doesn’t matter, I just need to give the number and communicate it’s got nothing to do with me,”_ Jeremy stated and the Squip nodded before turning off the optic nerve blocking.

A boy who both very much looked like Jeremy’s old best friend and at the same time didn’t faded into his view. And Jeremy was stunned silent, Michael wasn’t wearing glasses and he’d gotten rid of his red hoodie and was wearing a simple black jacket with jeans. The only thing that looked the same were the headphones he was wearing.  

 _“Of course he doesn't dress the same. It’s been three years already, it just shows he’s moved on with his life. And here you are, stuck in the past.”_ The Squip scolded him. Before Jeremy could start to move, the Squip spoke through his mouth. “I don’t think this is a good idea, someone else should give him the note.”

“No, I think it has to be Jeremy,” Christine made no pretense of acting like Jeremy had spoken those words, it was painfully obvious to the three of them when the Squips spoke for their hosts. “Jake asked us to because they wanted a connection to ask, I never knew Michael and Rich only ever bullied him.”

Rich muttered something in reply, but he’d forced his head so far in his arms Jeremy and Christine hadn’t been able to hear it.

“Right, Right, I’ll go,” Jeremy said before the Squip could stop him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Inside my hands, these petals brown, dried up fallen to the ground. But it was already too late now.”
> 
> Thanks for reading! Let me know if anything is confusing <3


	2. “This is looking like a contest, of who can act like they care less,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Story of Us, Taylor Swift

Michael usually stayed in the apartment until the last minute for him to get to the school on time. But that day Connor and Evan hadn’t bothered to pick up the books all over the floor, and Michael didn’t want to sit around in the mess, or god forbid, pick them up himself. 

That’s how he found himself sitting in his car in the parking lot, wondering what to do with himself. He knew if he stayed in the car, he’d just fall victim to his thoughts, but going to the campus would bring the chance of running into Jeremy. That was a dumb worry for the most part, they had only been forced to interact maybe twice since they graduated high school. The fact Jeremy straight up couldn’t see him certainly helped Michael avoid that.

With that thought Michael climbed out of the car and stretched his arms. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t let his failure in high school haunt him all day, he figured now was as good a time as any to get trying with that.

It was as he was walking to the quad that he realized exactly why he never came to the campus early. He looked over the crowd that had gathered around something to find exactly who he had just resolved not to think about.

“I resent that!” Jeremy said and straightened his back to get some more height on Rich.

“Jere, Honey, I appreciate you’re trying to defend my honor or something. But please, don’t try and act like you can take Rich in a fight. I don’t want to see you hurt,” Christine spoke next and made an over dramatic show of resting her hand on Jeremy’s arm and pouting.

It made Michael sick, how performative everything about their relationship was, like they were just doing it for popularity. Which they definitely were, Michael corrected in his head. It really bothered him that no one else in the school could see how horribly fake all their smiles and greetings were. The crowd of four girls and a boy cheered when Christine and Jeremy kissed and then immediately got bored, clearly having gotten the show that they wanted.

Michael sighed and decided to follow their example. It wasn’t any of his business how Jeremy and Christine wanted to handle their PDA, so long as they kept it PG. He just knew that he didn’t want to have his life on constant display, and while he had no idea why, Jeremy had decided that he did.

At least Alana shared Michael’s distaste for the way Jeremy’s group lived their lives, she always listened when he had to complain that he’d seen the boy in the hallway or at the campus store. And she’d always reply with stories of annoying things that he’d done in the math club, complaining that he’d only gotten the senior position over her because he was a boy.   

Michael sighed, he knew Evan had all but told him that morning that Alana didn’t want to hear him rant about Jeremy anymore with the whole ‘we’re worried about you’ conversation. Michael pushed down the memories of all the other times he’d been told that about Jeremy.

_His mothers pulling him out of the basement for an intervention the month Jeremy left him._

_Dustin stopping him from getting out of the car, a week before they broke up._

_Mr. Reyes the opening night of the first play Michael worked on, in the darkness of the sound booth._

Alright, so maybe he shouldn’t bother Alana with it right then. Maybe he should finally listen to all the advice they always gave and move on. But hadn’t that been what he was always trying to do?

He sighed again, Michael had been wandering as he thought and finally made it to the quad. Looking down at the time he still had a little over an hour until his class started. Thinking of class reminded him that he hadn’t yet done the pre class reading. While he normally survived just fine without doing them, it was exactly what he needed. No thinking of Jeremy, only how certain bones came to be through evolution and exactly how many ancient ancestors modern monkeys have in common with humans.   

Michael sat down on the ground and leaned back into a tree before grabbing his textbook out of his bag and slipping his headphones over his ears. He had taken Anthropology for the general science credit, and he didn’t like the teacher for the class he had, but that would never change the genuine interest he had in the subject.

There was a point Michael always reached, when he had his headphones on and something he enjoyed to read, that the rest of the outside world melted away, and he was left with something close to total silence beyond the music in his headphones. That state always made Michael relax.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when someone tried to get his attention, waving a hand in front of his book. Michael still couldn’t quite hear what was being said, but his brain started making assumptions before he could stop to think. He was clearly in someone else’s regular spot.

“Sorry hold on, I’ll be right out of your way!” Michael turned around to put the text book and headphones in his bag without so much as giving the person a glance. It was as he pulled his headphones down that he froze.

A melodic and entirely _fake_ voice let out a laugh. “Oh no! You’re not in anyone’s way, I hadn’t meant to startle you.”

Michael was glad the text book was already in the bag, because he was sure he’d have dropped it as he stood up and whipped around to see exactly who he feared standing across from him.

Jeremy gave him a bright smile like absolutely nothing was wrong with the conversation. It reeked of fakeness, even worse than it did from far away. Michael’s brain was running at 100 miles an hour, what was happening? He made no effort to stop the question that fell out of his mouth before even a greeting to the other boy.

“I- How wasted are you right now?” Michael asked, voice hard. That had to be the answer, it was the only reason Jeremy had talked to him at Dustin’s Halloween party in junior year.

“Huh?” Jeremy narrowed his eyes at Michael for a second in confusion, but it was such a show! Jeremy knew exactly what he was doing, he had to. “Oh! No no!” He laughed again. “I’m completely sober right now, though I can see why you’d make that assumption.”

“What do you want Heere?” Michael asked, starting to panic. What on earth had brought this on? His own hubris in thinking he could move on emotionally?

“Right, of course,” Jeremy nodded before reaching into his pocket, but then he froze. “But, don’t you already know what I want? Because you didn’t give it to me,” He’d said in a lower tone, like it was actually just meant for Michael instead of an audience.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michael said trying to ignore how his blood ran cold.

Jeremy let out another laugh, it wasn’t pleasant, it was bitter and angry, but at least it sounded real. “You’re really going to play dumb right now?”

For a split-second Michael thought he heard the sound of someone taking a photo on their phone and turned to look around. All he could really see was a blonde girl in a yellow jumper taking selfies. God! He hated noise so much, he needed to stay focused. He’d already lost his chance to reply to Jeremy.

“Well it’s no matter really! I’m much better than I ever would have been had I taken the Mountain Dew Red, so really! You made the right call!” All the genuine anger in his voice was gone and replaced with that fake cheer he always used. The whiplash of it all made Michael want to sit back down.

There was no way the temper tantrum he’d thrown back then had been the ‘right call’, so what was Jeremy’s angle here?  

“Look, I’d love to sit here and dig at old wounds all day, but I have, like literally anything else to be doing right now,” Michael said and attempted to start heading to the building that his Anthropology class was in, but Jeremy grabbed his arm before he could.

Michael refused to look at Jeremy, so he looked around instead. The girl in the yellow jumper was staring now, but she looked away when Michael noticed her. Though, she was still holding her phone straight out from her stomach. Was she recording them? It was then that Michael realized there was no way he was getting out of this without making a scene.

“What’s your problem?!” Michael yelled and pulled his arm out of the other’s grip.

“Will you chill?” Jeremy snapped back at him. Michael couldn’t tell what was real or fake anymore. “I have an acquaintance that wants to talk to you for her Journalism class.”

Jeremy finally pulled what he’d been digging for out of his pocket, it was a sheet of note paper with nothing but a phone number on it. It was so out of left field that Michael couldn’t really form any kind of reply beyond taking the paper.

Why go through such an old connection like that? Who would want to talk to him in the first place? What had been the point of the conversation up until then if that had been the end goal? If it had been just to annoy Michael, two could play at that game.

“Alright then, I hope you have a good day Michael,” Jeremy said back in his fake cheery voice. Michael felt almost numb as the next few seconds played out. Jeremy started to turn and walk away, and Michael balled up the paper in his hands before throwing it at the back of his head.

It hit.

Jeremy turned around in confusion, glaring at Michael when he was met with a mischievous grin.

Eventually, his eyes landed on the wad of paper by his feet and he looked back up at Michael, clearly not impressed with his aim.

“Oops,” Michael’s smirk was the biggest it ever had been as he thought _“Your move,”_ Hard enough to convey it with his eyes.

Clearly it worked, since Jeremy picked up the wad and threw it back at Michael, aiming for his face. It was paper which made it easy enough to catch, and Jeremy had already turned around in a huff.

Michael threw it again.

It missed that time, whizzing by Jeremy’s head. He turned around again with an annoyance that was clearly bordering on rage.

“Oops. Again,” Michael spoke. He’d been expecting Jeremy to make some comment about immaturity, to which Michael had already prepared multiple sharp comebacks, ready to win the battle of words.

Which is why he hadn’t been ready for the way Jeremy lunged at him and shoved him to the ground. After Michael had gotten the air back in his lungs, he looked up just long enough to see a horrified expression in Jeremy’s eyes. He only paused a second before he wrapped his leg behind Jeremy’s feet, knocking him over too.

The rest of the memory was a blur for Michael, Christine and Rich had ran over at some point and that calmed Jeremy down long enough for Michael to find his book bag in a huff. His eyes were watering, Jeremy must have hit him at some point in the fight.

Rich stayed to help Jeremy off the ground as Christine ran after Michael while he tried to leave. “Wait Michael! The phone number…”

The girl trailed off when she saw Michael’s face and boy, did he hope that was just because of how pissed he was right then. “Don’t call me by my name,” He said. There were so many other things he was angrier about at the moment, but he couldn’t think clearly.

Michael didn’t let himself turn around to see what happened after that until he was at the entrance to the classroom building. Christine had turned around and was currently holding a limping Jeremy as Rich laughed. Michael wonder for a second if he had actually hurt Jeremy before reminding himself not to care.

Michael pushed the door open and tried to put the event in the back of his mind, like that ever worked.

“That. Was! Perfect!” A girl he’d never talked to before came running up to him, not unlike the rush of cold air from the air conditioners that were kept on constantly. All he had time to process was just how bright her purple hair dye was before she kept talking. “I mean we knew that you would do something! But to have gotten that much progress from one conversation!”

“Do I, uh. Know you?” Michael finally found the voice to ask the girl. She stopped rambling and took a respectable step away from Michael with a breath.  

“Right, no you don’t,” She replied. “My name’s Jenna Rolen, Jeremy was trying to give you my phone number.”

“And you’re glad I got in a fight with your acquaintance?” Michael asked confused. Why had Jeremy wanted him to talk to this girl? Michael felt the rush of air that meant the door was open again and turned around to see the girl who’d been taking selfies.

“Hey, uh are you okay after all that?” She asked before turning to Jenna. “Have you asked him yet?”

“Asked me what?” Michael snapped, not liking when people talked over him. “And who are you anyway?”

She turned to him with a small pout, it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the one Christine had given that morning, and it was gone as soon as the girl remembered herself. “I’m Brooke Lohst? I was in your Astronomy class last year?” Michael gave her a blank look. “We did our final project together?” She asked again.

“Uh, sorry, I don’t tend to remember people,” Michael admitted, she was starting to sound familiar now, but that project had been done almost entirely online. There was no reason he should have been expected to remember her face.

She sighed, “it’s fine, I’m the same way. I only recognized your name…” She admitted. When in any of the conversation had she heard his name?

“I haven’t said my name,” Michael corrected the girl only to be completely ignored.

Jenna talked over him, “So, Michael! Brooke and I have something to ask you. But it’s not something to gossip about in the halls.”

“Again. How do either of you know my name?” Michael asked, not allowing the girls to control the conversation.

“Uh, just come with us,” Brooke said as she and Jenna signaled him into an unused lab room. It was almost empty save for another face, but this time Michael knew exactly who he was looking at.

“So how’d it go then?” Jake Dillinger, the boy that always hung out around Jeremy’s group, asked with a clear worry in his voice. He looked distressed between the three people that had walked in.

“How’d what go?” Michael would have definitely snapped and left the room had he not been so exhausted after his adrenaline left. Honestly how had he managed the walk to the building? He suddenly felt the need to sit down as he let Brooke lead him to one of the chairs in the classroom. “I don’t understand what any of you are talking about. And shouldn’t you be with Jeremy and Rich right now?” Michael pointed at Jake.

Jake sighed and moved to be closer to the rest of the group, “What happened was we sort of used you as a litmus test,” Jake admitted.

“Litmus test for what?” Michael asked annoyed. Brooke fiddled with her phone for a bit before putting it down on one of the tables. She was playing a video of the fight that had just happened. The words were muffled, and once Jeremy finally lowered his voice you couldn’t hear anything on the phone.

“You _were_ recording us!” Michael glared at Brooke.

She gave a small nod. “If it makes you feel any better, we were recording Jeremy’s reactions, not you…”

“…Why?” Michael found himself asking again. Jake spoke as Jenna had started digging in a backpack for something.

“Jeremy, and Christine and Rich are,” Jake bit his tongue while he was trying to find his voice. “they’ve like, got this sickness, I guess,” Jake hadn’t seemed confident in what he’d said though. Was he trying to describe what Michael thought he was? There was no way.

“Not a sickness Jake,” Jenna replied. “Sickness makes it sound natural. It’s not.”

“Well how about an addiction?” Brooke supplied. Jenna shook her head again.

“Not that either. There’s no way to describe it accurately without sounding insane,” Jenna sighed and held a giant three ring binder with random papers and newspaper clipping sticking out at every angle. Jake and Brooke moved to either side of her as they looked at something in the binder.

“Are, are you guys talking about their Squips?” Michael finally found the voice to ask and all three of them froze.

“Wait! You already know about them?” Jenna yelled as she slammed the binder down on the table, nearly getting Jake’s hand under it in the process. “Where and when did you hear about them?! Have you ever had one?” Jenna took a breath and Brooke put her hand on her shoulder.

“Jen, give him a chance to breathe,” She chided the other girl. “We’d really like to compare to any notes you have about them. If you’re alright with this topic.”

Michael wasn’t sure what was happening, the only people he knew who knew about Squips were him, Dustin, and everyone who had them. Jake seemed to read Michael’s hesitation.

“The thing is, right now we’re looking for a way to shut down the Squips entirely,” Jake spoke. “That’s why we tricked Jeremy into talking to you, we thought we’d be able to see past his Squip if he talked to someone from before he had it, and well…”

“He said that he was better with it then he would have been without it,” Michael said blankly, he could have told them that without having had to talk to Jeremy, why else would he had left without so much as a second glance? Brooke let out a small gasp at that and Jake looked down at the table.

“That’s…” Jake said.

“Meaningless,” Jenna cut him off. “It’s totally meaningless. A Squip can control what the host says. We can’t give up because he said he liked it once.” There was a fight in her voice that Michael didn’t fully understand. But the three people seemed to care so much for Jeremy’s group, the least Michael could do was give them the information he had. 

Michael sighed. “Mountain Dew Red, it went out of production in the 90’s, but it works,” he admitted. That was all he really knew.

The group didn’t look impressed though. “Yeah, we know about that. But it, it’s not a full shut down.” Jenna admitted. What was that supposed to mean? He’d remembered that the only time Jeremy had shown fear of Michael was when he’d been holding a bottle of the stuff.

Jenna sighed again. “In high school, I was like they are now, I, uh had one,” Jenna very carefully picked up a good chunk of the pages in the binder and flipped to a section that she had titled “personal Experience” Michael flipped through and tried not to gag as he read some of the things she’d written down.

_Would regularly predict man-made disasters, never explained._

_Regularly gave me conflicting directions and got mad when I failed._

_Never wanted to act on my original goal, just said that being popular would solve everything._

Were the notes that stuck out the most to Michael as he read. Eventually he found what he assumed Jenna had wanted him to read.

_After drinking the Mountain Dew Red, its systems are almost completely gone, however it’s still here. I can still hear it and sometimes it will project its self in my vision. I’m worried it’s repairing its old powers._

 He couldn’t take reading the account any more and flipped to a different part of the binder, landing on a newspaper clipping about a teenager dying in a mental hospital due to “complications.” The situation sounded so much like the story he’d heard on WoW in high school. But the date on the article said it was from earlier in the year.

He closed the binder.

“It hasn’t gotten any stronger since I wrote that,” Jenna said solemnly. “But believe me, even if Jeremy thinks he’s happier with that thing, he isn’t.”

Michael suddenly felt the guilt that had always been over his head since junior year come washing back in full force. Somewhere, he’d always known that was the case. But he’d shoved it aside with the rest of Jeremy’s influence in his life after the play. After all, it was easy to think that he wanted the Squip when the only time he acted like he hadn’t was when Michael had been high and riding an adrenaline rush.

“Well, I’m sorry I’m not more help than that, But I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Michael sighed. He really didn’t want to stand up, the pain having spread over his body as a dull throb, but he really needed to get away from the conversation before he started crying in front of three strangers. “This isn’t my battle…”

“Isn’t he your best friend?!” Brooke snapped at Michael and Jake nodded along furiously.

“No? He hasn’t been for a long time,” Michael said. Jenna wasn’t outwardly mad like Brooke and Jake, but her calm aura was intimidating in its own right.

“You say that but, the Squips are the closest thing this world will ever see to demonic possession,” She spoke and kept eye contact with Michael as Brooke and Jake both relaxed at either side of her. “If the boy he was before the Squip was stuck in his own body watching something else act for him, wouldn’t you want to help him then or would you still be a coward?”

Michael bit his tongue and glared at Jenna, who didn’t so much as flinch when he got mad at her. He always hated that word, _“coward.”_

_Just three weeks left in their senior year and the Drama club had finally wrapped up their last play until summer. Mr. Ryes had grown incredibly fond of the freshmen actors, who were all determined to be back in their sophomore year. Michael was backstage sorting the props so that who ever came back after the summer would be greeted by at least a color organized mess._

_He also hadn’t really wanted to talk to Dustin right then, not after the conversation about Jeremy that left Michael furious. His boyfriend could be very frustrating at times. And this just happened to be one of those times, Michael thought as the door to the prop closet flew open. He didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was._

_“Michael, you can’t keep running from this,” Dustin said and shut the prop closet door, so they were now in the room together._

_“Really? Because I think I’m doing this relationship a favor by not acknowledging that you said I don’t have emotions,” Michael laughed bitterly and picked up a pink tutu before shoving past Dustin to get to where he’d been putting pink costumes._

_“That’s not what I said,” Dustin growled and moved again so he was between Michael and the door. Michael tried to ignore the pit in his stomach as he recalled all the bullies who’d only get that close to him to shove him into the wall. “I said I was done acting as your therapist and that you needed to learn how to handle your emotions on your own!”_

_Michael looked down at the ground, it really hurt hearing that again, “Same difference,” He muttered._

_Dustin took a deep sigh and backed away from Michael, finally having sensed how their positions were distressing him. “Y’know, I’d never take one,” Dustin was looking at the ceiling when Michael finally brought himself to look. “But there are days where I understand why Jeremy would have taken a Squip to get away from you. You’re such an emotional drain.”_

_Michael stood there for a while, he was sure that tears were welling in his eyes. He heard so much, the muffled chatter of the crowd, the hum of the air conditioner, someone’s kid let out a painful scream that they were protected from because of the closed door. “If that’s all,” Michael choked. “If that’s all you have to say, I think we’re over.” Michael did his best to shove past Dustin again and leave the suffocating closet. He knocked the door open, right into Mr. Reyes._

_“Michael what-?” the teacher asked as Dustin followed him out._

_“You’re a coward Michael!” Dustin yelled down the hall. Michael didn’t care, he ran all the way to his car before letting himself really cry._

“I’m not a coward,” Michael spoke, not to Jenna per say, but she took it as a challenge all the same.

“Oh? Really? So you’ll help us?” She asked and a smirk spread on her face. Michael groaned in reply to that.

“He always talks about you,” Jake spoke up. “Whenever we get drunk together, he never shuts up about his old friend Michael.”

“Really?” Michael stared confused at that, he would have figured Jeremy had long since moved on from their friendship.

“Well, you and weird arguments about Shakespeare. But I think that’s mostly from Chris…” Jake trailed off. “But the point still stands! He still thinks of you as his friend.”  

“I,” Michael couldn’t really form a coherent thought at that. It was such an alien concept to him, and it made what he’d done back in junior year all the more awful.

Michael let out a deep sigh. The mistake had been eating at him since he made it, and yet, here he was about to reject help to fix it. “Alright then, I’ll help,” Michael spoke.

Brooke’s face was much calmer now, like a wave of relief had washed over her when he agreed. “This will work out, I promise! And besides, we should all be in contact in case the Squips try something,” She explained.  

Jake broke out into a bright smile after he’d processed what Michael said. “Alright man! I knew you’d come around!” Michael couldn’t help but notice that while his smile resembled the ones that Jeremy or Christine gave on a regular basis, it looked so much more human, like he really meant it.

“Just in time too,” Jenna nodded as she gently closed her binder and moved to put it away. “We all need to get to class.”

Michael checked the time on his phone after that and yeah, well he’d be fine for another ten minutes, he could see how someone with class on the other end of campus might need to leave now.

“Oh! Oh!” Brooke made a noise before all but yanking Michael’s now unlocked phone out of his hand. “You’ll need our contact info!”

Eventually she gave him his phone back and they started heading to their separate classes, Michael looked down to check the new contacts in his phone when he noticed an unopened message, from Jared. Great.

_Hey! Did you manage to pull off Heere’s skin suit when you pummeled him in the Quad???_

Michael pinched the bridge of his nose, none of Connor’s friends were exactly tuned into the school rumor mill, so he’d hoped they wouldn’t find out at all. Michael took a deep breath and decided to leave Jared on read. It’s not like any of them would understand anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I'd tell you I miss you but I don't know how, I've never heard silence quite this loud.”


	3. “I don’t understand what you see in me ‘cause I’m just another story. (That’s not worth the reading)”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> StopRewind, Nathan Sharp
> 
> In the first flashback this chapter there's a depiction of sexual assault, it's nothing too graphic, but skip the first chunk of italic text if you don't want to read that. Sorry if this causes anyone stress.

_Once a week, every Sunday, since they started going to college, the Squips made Jeremy and Christine have sex. It was supposed to work as a method to get rumors going and make people jealous of the two of them. The first time it happened had been their second week in the dorms. They wouldn’t have been finished unpacking had the Squips let him or Rich take anything of importance, but they hadn’t, and the room sat nearly as pristine as the day the boys walked into it._

“You know, I think it would be much better for our social reputation if Chris and I went with Rich to hang out,” _Jeremy thought annoyed at his Squip as he sat in the corner of the room, playing with the hem of his shirt, a glance to his left told him that Christine was making a similar motion with the hem of her skirt._

_Neither of them wanted this. It was abundantly clear from the fact they had always put it off. They had wanted to wait until they were both 18, then they wanted to wait until high school graduation, then they had wanted to wait until they were in college. And then they ran out of excuses._

“No, Richard must make his own social connections with the other freshmen, you’d just be a drag on him,” _The Squip glared at him._ “Besides, this is what you’ve always wanted Jeremy.”

_The Squip’s hand guided Jeremy’s gaze to Christine, he could barely see her in the low light of the dorm room. They had been sitting there since the sun went down. In this kind of lighting, it was easy to see their eyes glowing when the Squips were in their vision._

_“We should start now,” Christine finally spoke, but it wasn’t her, Jeremy knew. Her voice only went that low when the Squip was talking for her._

_“Uh, I think, I have to do something in the-” Jeremy was cut off as a shock ran down his spine._

“You two are making a bigger deal out of this than you need to be,” _The Squip spoke with a rage Jeremy knew the computer didn’t truly have. But these days, he was starting to question that knowledge._ “This will be advantageous for your social standing and you’ll find it’s not all you’re making it out to be.”

_Jeremy found his body moving over to the bed where Christine had been sitting. They were both on edge._

“Kiss her,” _The Squip instructed._

_Christine must have received the same command because they nearly crashed their foreheads together in the rush to make out. This at least was something they were used to, having had to make out at parties before._

“Now touch her breast,” _The Squip said like it was angry it had to walk the two of them through this. Jeremy paused as they pulled apart for air and slowly moved his hand closer to her chest. He hovered his hand so that she could see what he was about to do before he did it._

_And there must have been something in the way she just looked so distressed, in how Jeremy really hadn’t thought about sex since the he’d taken the Squip, in how neither of them wanted it._

_Tears welled in Christine’s eyes and Jeremy broke down crying as he pulled away. She wasn’t far behind. The two of them sat there sobbing on Jeremy’s dorm room bed for what felt like forever. The Squips had tried to get them to stop, but that was the one and only time they had managed to directly defy their Squip’s orders._

_The next thing Jeremy remembered was Rich throwing the door open, eyes wide. There was a boy from the English class the three of them shared standing behind Rich. Jake, Jeremy remembered._

_“What the hell’s wrong?!” Rich cursed. Jeremy hiccupped and Christine started crying harder._

_“Uh, are they?” Jake tried to ask but Rich threw the door shut in his face._

_“What happened?” Rich turned to his two friends, neither of whom were even undressed yet._

_Christine finally found her voice long enough to speak. “I just, I just don’t want to have sex? Is that really so bad?” She bit down another sob before turning away._

_“And, I, don’t want to,” Jeremy thought about it. He really didn’t want to have sex either, believe it or not. He had been a chronic masturbator in high school, but after the Squip, he’d been fairly celibate. “I don’t want to hurt her.”_

_Rich nodded along, not needing either of them to tell him what the problem was. “What matters isn’t the act, it’s the noise.” Rich finally spoke. “If you guys just jump on the bed and moan a little, no one will be able to tell the difference.”_

_“Really?” Christine asked, voice now horse._

_“Yeah, I dated a girl in sophomore year who really wanted to piss off her parents, so whenever she had me over that’s what she’d do. And let me tell you, it worked.” Rich shuddered at the memory before a knock came from the door. They’d forgotten about the boy outside. Rich threw the door open once more._

_“Hey sorry ‘bout that!” Rich laughed. “You still wanna head to the Gym?”_

_“Are they alright now? What was wrong?” Jake completely ignored Rich looking to Jeremy and Christine, who did their best to wave it off._

_“Yeah they’re more than alright trust me,” Rich said before closing the door. Jeremy could still hear the end of the conversation. “They just love each other that much.”_

With their current set up everyone was happy, and the Squips hadn’t tried to force Jeremy or Christine since. Currently Jeremy was doing his best not to laugh as Christine jumped up and down while doing her best impression of a porn star.

Jeremy took the time to look his friend over. There might have been a point in Jeremy’s life where the sight of Christine in her sports bra would have gotten Jeremy excited, but these days he could only see her stomach and how much weight she’d lost since high school.

After what she’d deemed the climax, she took one last jump before pulling her legs out from under herself and joining Jeremy sitting down. “Not excited to be getting some ‘action’?” She laughed at the way Jeremy glared at her.

Jeremy always had to wonder if she truly was happier with the Squip. She’d said she hadn’t wanted it when he’d first offered it to her, but he and Rich had talked her into taking it.

 _“Of course she’s grateful, her life would be in shambles by now without our help,”_ The Squip spoke in Jeremy’s ear. _“Just like yours.”_

“Hello? Earth to Jeremy?” Christine asked and her brow knit together in worry. She must have seen the glitter in Jeremy’s eyes from the Squip’s avatar. “You’ve been all spacy this week…”

“Yeah I guess I have,” Jeremy laughed and moved to sit cross legged on the bed. He had been kind of in his own head recently, and it wasn’t just the Squip keeping him there either.

Christine broke into a smirk as she threw herself down on Jeremy’s bed too. “It’s because of Michael isn’t it?”

Jeremy could feel the Squip’s disapproval, but all the same it was just Jeremy and Christine in the room right then. “What? No…” Jeremy trailed off before joining Christine in a fit of giggles. “Alright maybe a little.”

After the mess on Monday Jeremy had been surprised to find out that the Squip hadn’t gone back to blocking Michael from his field of view. It had said something about having to keep an eye on the enemy. After that, it was just surprising how much of his normal routine overlapped with Michael’s.

He was still embarrassed about having to grab both Christine and Rich and run the other way down the hall when he caught sight of Michael talking to a teacher on Wednesday. They’d made such a racket, Jeremy was sure that Michael noticed.

And when he wasn’t running away the Squip would have to constantly shock him, so he’d stop staring at his old friend. Michael had taken to changing his clothes on a regular basis instead of the singular hoodie he’d always worn in high school. And not to mention that he did look really good without his glasses, with his face was easier to see.

 _“Yes, it’s a shame his personality was so thoroughly incompatible, he could have been very popular with an upgrade,”_ The Squip spoke, before placing its avatar’s hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. _“That is why you’re so obsessed with looking at him, is it not?”_

Jeremy had no time to reply before Christine saved him. She let out another giggle. “Jeremy~” She sang his name. “I’m very sorry to inform you, but you seem to have a terminal sickness!”

“And just what is that Doctor?” Jeremy asked with a smirk.

“It’s called a crush Dummy!” Christine said and threw a pillow into Jeremy’s face. Jeremy felt the heat rush to his cheeks at the accusation. Christine lost it at that and fell backwards on the bed laughing.

“What?! No I…” Jeremy trailed off. Shit, did he?

“Hey, hey. You won’t get any judgement from me,” Christine giggled a little, undermining her point. “You listen to me gush about Jake all the time, I’m willing to return the favor!”

Jeremy was glad Christine never called him on how stiff he went whenever she brought up Jake. He knew he couldn’t tell her that Rich gave him pretty much exactly the same rants on Jake’s eyes and his hair and just how good and nice he was on the nights she wasn’t there.

 _“I do wish the two of you would take_ _emotional infidelity_ _a little more seriously,”_ The Squip spoke.

 _“it’s not infidelity if we’ve agreed we don’t like each other,”_ Jeremy snapped turning slightly away from Christine to let her know he was glaring at the Squip and not her.

 _“She is your girlfriend and your end goal. The fact you’ve slipped so badly and let Jake capture her heart is only reflective of how much help you need.”_ The Squip stood above Jeremy, glaring down like it was scolding a spoiled child.

 _“Yeah, don’t need the help thanks,”_ Jeremy snapped in his head.

“Hey uh, are you two decent?” Rich’s voice came from outside the door after two knocks. Christine and Jeremy both burst out laughing at the tone of their friend. Rich took that as meaning that they were, and then blushed deeply when he found them both shirtless.

“Jesus! Put some tops on!” He yelled and picked Jeremy’s shirt from the floor before throwing it in Jeremy and Christine’s general direction. That only caused the two of them to laugh even harder as Rich turned around.

“Oh my god Rich! My cheer uniform shows more skin than my sports bra,” Christine giggled as she went and put her shirt back on.

“I am a gentleman!” Rich protested while pointedly staring at the wall.

“Well Mister Chivalry, we’re decent now,” Jeremy laughed, and Rich finally turned around.

“So, how has your day been before getting ruined by the sight of stomachs?” Christine laughed as she flipped her hair out of her T shirt.

“Nothing much, what’s happening in here?” Rich asked before sitting down on his own bed opposite the other two.

“I’m teasing Jeremy about his crush on Michael,” Christine laughed.

“Oh, I can get on board with that, the new one or the old one?” Rich asked with a smirk. Jeremy yelped.

“What does that even mean?!” Jeremy near shrieked.

“The new one, but it looks like were moving on,” Christine turned to Jeremy.

“I have no idea what either of you are talking about,” He pouted. They both started laughing and Jeremy realized he was not getting out of this with his pride intact.

“Oh my goodness Chrissy!” Christine fell over onto Jeremy’s side, doing what he assumed to be an impression of himself. “I can’t believe that Michael’s going to the same college as us! I’m so happy!”

“I did not say it like that,” Jeremy tried to protest.

“Hey- Hey Rich y’know?” Rich started up this time, trying to sound drunk. “Y’know Michael used to play that game a lot? He always really loved it.”

“Or how about!” Christine jumped off Jeremy’s bed and ran over to Rich’s. “Oh don’t you think Michael would like this single patch I found in a random store and brought the topic up totally unprompted?”

“Okay I get it!” Jeremy snapped and threw his pillow at his two friends. “I talk about him way too much! Noted!”

 _“Look at that, even Rich has noted how hopeless you are,”_ The Squip spoke. _“I suppose as long as you don’t act on any feelings there’s nothing horribly wrong with thinking about him. So long as you remember just how badly you ruined his life and keep your end goal in mind.”_  

Jeremy hated to admit it but the Squip was right, from the way Michael had behaved at the start of the week, he wasn’t excited to be talking to Jeremy again. And, Michael hadn’t even taken note of what Jeremy had wanted him to, the thing Jeremy couldn’t have the Squip noticing.

He could feel the Squip looking through his thoughts at that, so he panicked and immediately gave his full attention to his two friends, who had left him alone when the Squip started talking to him.

“Anyway! Jake’s real excited about the party, even if it’s last minute!” Rich said. Jeremy had noticed that Rich had been letting the red hair dye of his streak fade for longer periods of time before re dying it again. Back in high school he’d dyed it every other week, now he’d only dye it once a month.

Jeremy watched the way Rich’s face lit up when he talked about his crush, the freckles on his face scrunched together and it made them harder to count, but Jeremy would if that’s what it came to.

The Squip rolled it’s avatar’s eyes before dematerializing, Jeremy had won that fight.

Christine clapped her hands together, “Oh I think it’ll be great! A party doesn’t really even need a reason!” Jeremy finally processed what they were talking about.

“Didn’t he already throw a party recently?” Jeremy asked. It was like last month recently too, Jake normally spaced them out a little more than that so that people would at least try to study.

“I mean, I guess, if you wanna be a buzzkill,” Rich rolled his eyes. “But you are going to be a good friend and help us with the planning, right?”

“I don’t know. I have stuff happening with the math club,” Jeremy wasn’t even lying, the math club was hosting a mock algebra competition for STEM week. And since no one in the club had been interested in the volunteer work, most of it was going to fall on him.

“Aw come on Jeremy!” Christine wined. “That’s only going to be for the first part of next week, right?”

“I guess,” Jeremy conceded. He was happy his friends were happy, even if it meant spending extended periods of time alone with Jake, Rich and Christine. When they were all in the same room the romantic tension got so bad Jeremy wondered how no one else had noticed yet.

He hadn’t replied, but both his friends had retreated into their own minds, likely to talk to their Squips.

It left Jeremy alone with nothing but the silence of the dorm room that made the place expand and shrink at the same time.

Jeremy hated the silence.

 

Michael _hated_ noise.

So much.

It was all he could think about as the movie that had been forgotten still blared over Jake’s expensive and very loud sound system.

Brooke sat with him on the floor and talked happily about the different colors of nail polish that she had, and Michael tried his best to listen. He tried but ever since Jake and Jenna ran upstairs arguing about something, all Michael could hear was their heavy footsteps and muffled voices and the way the giant, old house creaked under them.

“So which one do you want?” Brooke asked after finally getting all her nail polish out. An explosion stock sound rang out through the living room.

“Uh, the same black as you,” Michael replied, he hadn’t really heard the other options.

“Yep! Sometimes it’s good to stick with classics!” Brooke agreed before taking Michael’s left hand.

How had Michael ended up here having a slumber party, at Jake Dillinger’s family home, at 10:30 on a Sunday night? Michael took a deep breath as he heard Jake scream Jenna’s name from the other end of the house. Brooke actually acknowledged that noise and turned her head to the balcony of the second floor.

The current situation was her fault, Michael thought.

 

_It had been about a week since Michael had been recruited into Jenna’s investigation for the way to kill the Squips. It had become very clear early on that she was the leader and the other two were just her lackeys, or three now, Michael thought. Whether or not he really wanted to be, he was now part of this hunt._

_Which meant that for the first time in what might have been forever, Michael had to make sure that more than one person who wasn’t a mother of his liked him. And yeah sure, he could have kept up the anti-social act and asked to be kept on reserve until they needed another litmus test, but…_

_But, Michael wasn’t super sure why. Maybe it was Jenna digging up the old memory of Dustin saying he needed to have better control of his emotions._

_Maybe it was the way Michael had to ignore the stinging jealousy he felt whenever Connor’s friends were all in the apartment living room, watching movies and laughing like they were all one big family._

_Maybe it was the way Jeremy had spent the entire week staring at and avoiding Michael, like he knew what Michael was planning._

_Whatever the reason, Michael had found himself in the school library on a Saturday afternoon reading self-help books. He had to do his best to not throw them aside as he flipped through title after title. All of them focused on how to go about making friends and finding romantic partners. Almost none of them had anything to say on how to be a friend._

_Eventually, it was time for Michael to go home and he’d settled on a few that weren’t totally worthless ‘go outside and get drunk’ advice. He’d been so on edge that he’d see Jeremy in the library that he hadn’t even noticed who was standing behind the checkout desk._

_“Hey Michael!” Brooke’s voice caught him off guard. “Surprised I work here?” She giggled._

_“Yeah a little, sorry I didn’t say hi sooner,” Michael commented. He’d read in one of the books he’d put back that constant contact was necessary for a good friendship._

_“Oh that’s fine!” Brooke chirped before picking up the scanner. “I was in the back organizing…” She trailed off when she looked down at the books Michael was checking out and yeah, ‘How to Stop Being Selfish’, ‘Making and Keeping Friends’ and ‘Recognizing Toxic Behavior in Yourself’ did look sort of bad out of context._

_He didn’t even have time to explain himself before tears welled up in Brooke’s eyes and she leaned over the counter to pull him into a hug._

Which was how they ended up crashing a sleepover that had originally been just Jenna and Jake. Jake said it was fine because these sleepovers were just meant as a time for Jake to unwind before having to spend long periods of time interacting with Jeremy’s group.

Michael wasn’t having the best time in the world, not that any of his new friends were at fault. But he knew, they had been popular kids in high school. It was in the way they carried themselves. Michael was just glad he’d talked Jake out of trying to play truth or dare.

“Look out below!” Jenna yelled as she ran over to the balcony railing and threw a very heavy looking book down to the first floor. Michael and Brooke both yelped as it landed just a bit too close to their heads.

“Jenna!” Jake yelled again, with more force that time. “Watch where you’re throwing things at least!”

“Hey Mikey, are you okay?” Brooke asked so sweetly Michael didn’t even have the heart to tell her how much he hated that nickname.

“Yeah. I’m fine, what is this? A yearbook?” Michael called at Jenna and Jake as they came down the stairs.

“It’s my high school yearbook,” Jake said in an annoyed tone as Jenna giggled.

“It’s the ultimate blackmail material!” She burst and ran over to Brooke and Michael. “Look at this!”

Brooke went back to painting Michael’s nails as Jenna started flipping though the book quickly. “Here! Look!” Jenna shoved the book at the two of them open on a picture of three boys all wearing school uniforms, Michael eventually recognized the middle figure as Jake and before he could stop it, he let out a small laugh. Brooke did the same before Jake grabbed the book from Jenna.

“You’re all so mean! It’s normal to have a school uniform,” He pouted before moving the book to a random bookshelf.

“Maybe for private high schools but-” Brooke cut herself off with another giggle. The movie had moved onto a more emotional, dialogue-heavy scene and Michael did his best to ignore it.

“I don’t know… I think you looked, fine,” Michael tried to say that he had looked good, but he really hadn’t. Jake sighed at the comment.

“A bunch of the seniors had a bonfire after graduation and burned their uniforms, I kind of regret not doing that myself,” Jake thought out loud.  

“Why didn’t you then?” Michael asked before thinking about whether or not it was a good idea.

“I mean I was invited but it’s just, I wasn’t the nicest to people in my grade, I didn’t want to ruin their last memories of high school,” Jake said before laying down on the blanket Brooke had spread on the floor.

“Oh, Jake,” Brooke muttered as she capped the bottle of nail polish, having finished Michael’s hand.

“I mean, I had my own problems to deal with around graduation, I didn’t want the extra drama y’know?” He said and Jenna sat down on the blanket too, Michael felt himself sigh when Jenna reached over and muted the movie in the background. The distracting sounds were gone now.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jenna asked softly, there was more emotion and care in her voice then she normally used in public, normally opting to play the role of the emotionally uninvolved journalist. Jake threw his arm over his eyes and let out a laugh.

“Do I want to talk about how those damn Squips ruined my family? No, not really,” He replied. Jenna just nodded even though he couldn’t see. But instead of sitting in the silence, Jake sat up and turned to Brooke and Michael. “It’s just, it’s because my parents work for the company that distribute Squips, at least I think they do,”

 Michael furrowed his brow at that statement. Sure Michael thought that something had to be turning a profit on the Squips, Dustin had always been convinced there was one company masterminding the whole Squip outbreak. He’d been so convinced he’d taken a study abroad program to go stay in Japan, against Michael’s Advice.

Not that Michael still had energy on that, if Dustin wanted to run away and get himself Squipped that was his business.

Clearly both Michael and Brooke took too long to reply to that because Jake just sighed as Jenna put a hand on his shoulder. They’d been sitting in silence so long Michael almost forgot they were having a conversation.

“In high school, I had a friend named Chloe,” Brooke spoke up. Jake wiped his eyes on his arm before turning to watch Brooke talk. “She’s the friend I told you guys about when we first met,” Jake and Jenna nodded. Brooke turned to Michael. “Chloe took a Squip.

“We were always inseparable, one of Chloe’s boyfriends used to joke that we were joined at the hip. And one day I heard about something that was supposed to help with our social standing. So we pooled our money and we bought one Squip.” Brooke stopped speaking at that and bit her lip, like she was having a hard time forming the rest of the words.

“Hey it’s okay,” Jake almost reached out to hug Brooke, only stopping when she shook her head in reply.

“I’m fine I just. The original plan had been for me to take the Squip and then share the advice I’d get with Chloe. But I chickened out at the last minute and Chloe took it instead. And it worked for a while but, it’s so tiring hearing everything that’s wrong with you and it hurts so much when it comes from someone that you love, I left after high school. But I left her alone with that thing.”

They sat in silence after that, Jake still hovering over Brooke from the last time she’d rejected his hug. “I think you did what was best for you in the situation,” Michael said and rubbed at the back of his neck, he really didn’t know how to reply to any of this. Brooke for her part, had tried not to cry harder at that but Michael still knew he’d said the wrong thing.

“It’s okay Brooke, because you’re here and we’ll find the way to turn the Squips off and once we have it, we’ll be able to save Chloe and everyone else,” Jenna pushed passed both boys and pulled her into a hug. “And I’m sure Chloe will forgive you.”

Brooke let out a pained laugh at that before finally calming down. “thanks, all of you, I thought I could get though the story without…”

“It’s fine, it’s a hard topic,” Michael comforted, and this time Jenna nodded and agreed.

“Well if we’re moving onto hard topics, I think that means we should break open the wine,” Jake said before walking into the kitchen.

Brooke let out a laugh. “Do you even know anything about wine Jake?”

“No but my parents do, I’m sure the stuff in the fridge is perfectly drinkable,” He called.

“Is it red or white at least?” Jenna asked.

“It’s uh, dark?” Jake replied. The other three laughed. And Michael finally felt himself loosening up. But, he didn’t trust them or himself enough to open up totally. He tried to ignore the building panic in his mind.

“Well you all can have fun with that, I need to drive back so I can’t drink,” He said.

“Aren’t you staying over?” Jake asked when he came back holding a random wine bottle.

“Uh, well that had been the plan, but some stuff came up and my roommate is staying at his boyfriend’s place tonight and our land lady doesn’t like when we leave the apartment empty overnight so…” Michael lied. He thought it sounded convincing enough, but he still felt guilty looking at Brooke and Jake’s reactions. “But uh, you guys do these a lot right? I promise I’ll stay overnight next time.”

That seemed to make everyone in the room lighten up a bit.

“Alright then! We’re going to hold you to that!” Jenna smiled. Brooke got up and hugged Michael before letting him leave the house.

It was such a foreign feeling to Michael, people wanting to spend time with him. He tried to stay focused on the roads to his apartment instead of feeling giddy about having friends again.

It was only as he entered the apartment he shared with Connor that he thought of the one thing he’d yet to tell the others about the Squip. He hoped that they’d be able to forgive him for not telling them sooner when he gave it to them.

He reached down to his cell phone and pulled it out before calling his home number.

“Michael? What’s wrong dear? It’s late,” His mother picked up nearly instantly.

“Hi Mama! Uh, nothing’s wrong but, you know how I keep old sodas in the fridge in the basement?” He asked.

“Yes, do you want one of them? Wouldn’t putting them through the mail be bad for them?”

“Uh not really,” Michael thought about it, the quality might drop, but it wasn’t like he was going to be the one drinking them. “So can you go down into the basement and open the case of Mountain Dew Red? I need like two or three bottles…” He’d wasted the whole two-liter bottle at the play, but in senior year he’d been able to purchase a case of 16-ounce bottles.

“Alright, I’ll have them in the mail tomorrow morning, you should go to sleep dear,” His mother said and yeah, now that he checked the time it was almost midnight.

He said goodnight to his mother and hung up the phone, before dressing down for bed. Connor wasn’t going to be home until after school the next day so he made no effort to be quiet while he climbed into his bed.

Since the day Jenna had tricked Michael into talking with Jeremy, he’d expected the reoccurring dream to get worse, but the opposite had happened. So Michael was pretty happy that these days he could pretty much guarantee that he’d get a good dreamless sleep.

 

**BANG!**

 

And what felt like immediately after, Michael was woken up by the sound of the front door slamming. Michael groaned and wondered why on earth Connor would be back before the sun rose? Unless he’d had a fight with Evan or Jared.

But checking his phone he saw that it was 5:30AM and that was more worrying than Connor storming back at midnight.

If he came back at midnight that meant he’d come right home, 5AM meant that either there’d been some incident that made them all fight in the early morning, or Connor had been wandering outside for five hours.

Michael didn’t even bother messaging Zoe as he climbed down out of bed, grabbed his glasses and tried to not look like he ran into the living room.

“Hey man, is every-” Michael walked out to find Connor sitting down on the couch, and while that wasn’t worrying, the things he was holding were. In Connor’s left hand he was holding what appeared to be a Tic-Tac and the other was a bottle of Mountain Dew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "We brave and broken fewer, 3 cheers to fear the future" 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. “Happiness, hit her like a train on a track coming toward her, stuck still no turning back,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dog Days are Over, Florence + The Machine

Michael didn’t remember anything until he was on top of Connor and throwing the bottle of Mountain Dew across the room as Connor held the pill out of his reach. He heard the bottle crash somewhere near the TV stand.

“What the hell’s your problem?!” Connor yelled and tried to shove Michael off of him.

“You can’t take that! It’s really bad!” Michael yelled.

“I wasn’t going to! Some creep gave it to me! The guy said that it would ‘fix all my life problems’,” Connor replied before letting Michael grab the pill away from him. “It’s probably just molly.”

Michael stared at the pill that caused so much trouble in his life. It didn’t look like a Tic-Tac close up, the off-white grey made it look all the more ominous. It was silent in the room, Connor was watching him, Michael knew. The room was silence and yet, it felt like the pill was calling to him, or taunting him. Michael felt sick just looking at it.

“Are you done freaking out?” Connor snapped Michael out of his trance with a glare.

“No,” Michael replied calmly and ran to the kitchen to get a plastic bag to store the pill in. Best not to lose it, he thought. Also, Michael didn’t want to hold it for any longer than necessary. “Where were you when you got this? And did you see anyone else take them?”

“I was walking home from the school dorms, and no it was only me,” Connor replied to the questioning. “I'm so exhausted.” He muttered into his hands. Michael noted to ask if things were going wrong with Evan and Jared later.

He checked the time on his phone. 5:36am. He cringed as he hit the call button on Jenna’s contact. They were still at the sleepover which meant that waking one of them up would most likely mean waking them all up.

He was nearly sent to voicemail before Jenna’s groggy and very annoyed voice picked up. “Michael, this wouldn’t even be tolerated if you were still here.”

“Someone gave my roommate a grey pill and a bottle of Mountain Dew and said it would ‘fix his life’,” Michael dumped the abridged version of events onto his sleepy friend hoping she’d know what to do.

It took a few seconds, but she did process what was going on. “Shit! Did he?” Jenna yelled and Michael could hear shifting from Jenna’s end. Brooke and Jake must have woken up by now.

“No, I’ve got it in a plastic bag now,” Michael replied.

“Okay, uh, that’s better than the alternative,” Jenna muttered. Michael heard a muffled “Get up!” through the phone. “Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you throw the Mountain Dew out yet?” She asked. Michael looked over to the TV stand where he saw that he’d knocked a picture of Connor and Zoe over when he threw the bottle.

“I’m doing that right now,” He replied as he sat the picture up, ignoring his roommate. He grabbed the bottle before opening the window above the apartment dumpster and dropping it.

“Okay and uh, the pill doesn’t seem active? Does it?” Jenna asked carefully. Michael thought to how nauseous he’d been while holding it but was he pretty sure that was just him.

“I don’t think so, I wouldn’t know how to check that though,” Michael thought, and Jenna hummed.

There was a shuffling on the other end of the phone and next thing he knew Brooke was talking to him. “It’s a good thing to have one, right?” She asked. “I’ve always thought that if we saw how the individual robots worked, we could shut it off.”

There was some arguing on the other end of the phone about how they’d need a microscope to see anything useful. It was as it occurred to Michael that Evan had talked about having a microscope in his dorm room that Connor’s phone went off.

“Hey guys, meet me on campus soon,” Michael said and waited just long enough for Brooke to confirm that she heard him to hang up.

“Hey, yeah- no! Everything’s alright, I know, I’m sorry,” Connor muttered into his phone. Michael walked over to Connor and gestured for the phone. Connor gave him a weird look but gave him the phone a bit easier than Michael had been expecting.

“Hey Evan?” Michael said.

“Michael? What’s happening?” Evan asked. 

“I need to ask for a favor, a couple of friends and I really need a Microscope,” He said. “Can we borrow yours?”

“I, uh, you mean, like, right now?” He asked confused.

“Yeah. We’ll be there in like half an hour,” Michael said. Then there was a shifting on the phone as Jared started to speak.

“Only if you get Connor to come back over here with you,” Jared said. Connor sighed, having heard the voice. He grabbed his phone back without giving Michael much warning.

“You don’t need to stick my roommate on me, we’re on our way,” Connor replied before hanging up. “I have no idea what you’re up to, but let’s go.”

Michael nodded before grabbing the nearest coat of his and following after Connor. he only noticed after he’d picked it up, but he was pulling his red hoodie from high school over his head. He didn’t really wear it outside the apartment anymore, but he was in too much of a hurry to go back and grab another.

Connor climbed into Michael’s car and pouted in the passenger seat. Michael kept his eyes on the road as he started talking again. “So uh, can I ask what happened?”

Connor let out an indignant huff. Maybe Michael had been too forward in asking. “Nothing happened I just,” Connor didn’t finish his sentence.

“Well, even if nothing’s wrong, if you ever want to talk about it, I’ll listen,” Michael tried to comfort, but Connor pulled even further into himself. Michael sighed and decided that was probably the end of that conversation. It was silly for him to think Connor would ever open his emotions to him.

Connor didn’t speak again until Michael was pulling the car into the school parking lot. “It’s just dumb, I woke up early and I saw the two of them asleep together and I just thought, I wasn’t… that they didn’t…”

Michael sighed and pulled the key out of the ignition. They sat in silence for a few beats. Michael knew all too well what it felt like to feel like you weren’t wanted. But unlike Michael, who had been left to rot by Jeremy and then later deemed a hopeless case by Dustin, Connor hadn’t been abandoned by Evan and Jared, not yet anyway. “Well that doesn’t sound like what I know about Jared and Evan at all,” Michael tried to comfort.

“Yeah, that’s why I said it was dumb,” Connor said and pushed his door open.

Michael looked down at his own phone where Jake had sent a message into the group chat that they were on their way and asking where to meet Michael. He shot a message telling them to meet by the boy’s dormitory and followed after Connor.

Which was how they all ended up standing in Jared and Evan’s dorm room which was just a little too small for all of them. Connor was sitting on one of their beds to make more floor space, while Jared just glared Michael down.

“You know I’m not supposed to let girls into the dorms for another two hours right?” Jared asked annoyed. Michael was just grateful Jared hadn’t called him on not having any friends a week ago.

“We’ll promise not to get pregnant off the ambiance,” Jenna replied with a deadpan. Jared let out a sigh as Evan finished plugging the Microscope in before handing a small tray to Michael.

“Alright, that’s the tray you put what you want to view on, the nob will help focus everything and you have to turn the backlight on if you want to see anything,” Evan started giving Michael directions on how to use a Microscope like he’d never taken a chemistry class.

“Alright then,” Michael moved to the front of the crowd to put the tray into the microscope. Jared and Evan watched curiously as Jake, Jenna and Brooke all looked on terrified.

“Ah wait, Michael,” Jake reached out as Michael started to reach into his pocket. “Maybe we should, like, cover our mouths?”

“What are you guys going to look at that you think it’s toxic?” Jared asked before Michael could speak.

“It’s a Tic-Tac,” Connor replied. Jared and Evan looked at Connor and then to Michael.

“He- he’s joking right?” Evan asked weakly. Jenna clicked her tongue.

“It’s not a Tic-Tac,” She replied. “It’s something called a SQUIP, it’s an AI that exists on many nanobots and acts as a life coach for the one who takes it, which would be fine if they weren’t so aggressive with their methods.”

The room went silent after Jenna’s explanation. Only broken by Connor’s attempts not to laugh. 

“You, you know you could have just said you didn’t want to tell us,” Evan stuttered out in a dark tone.

“I wish she was joking,” Brooke said. “But she’s telling the truth.”

“No, she’s not,” Jared fought back. “We’re years off from making nanobots, let alone ones that can hold a whole AI.”

Michael took the argument as a chance to set up the microscope. He took the bag out and ignored Jared’s outburst of ‘oh my god it _is_ a Tic-Tac!’ as he scraped a bit off the pill to put on the tray. He had to fiddle with the knob to get the image into focus, and he saw a bunch of square shapes but didn’t really understand any of it.

“Hey so, I’ve got zero clue what I’m looking at,” Michael commented as he pulled away, Jared laughed at that statement, and Jenna huffed.

Connor sat up before speaking, “You know, Jared’s a robotics major. He could tell you that you’re looking at a Tic-Tac, no problem,” He said and gestured to his boyfriend, who turned to him and looked a little like Connor had just outed a big secret.

“I mean there’s no way in hell that pill has the physical room for the memory board required for an AI,” Jared said proudly and pushed Michael away from the microscope. “And I’m sure that it just looks like, sugar… crystals...” He stopped talking and visibly scowled when he looked into the eye scope.

“W-What’s wrong?” Evan asked.

“These are nanobots,” Jared said coldly. “These are actual, honest to god nanobots.”

“Still don’t believe us?” Jenna asked smugly. Michael laughed into his arm, trying to pass it off as a cough.

“I mean, this still can’t possibly…” Jared muttered as he started prodding at the microscope tray. “Connor, someone just handed this to you?”

“That and a bottle of Mountain Dew,” Connor called from the bed.

“Well do you still have that?” Jared turned around annoyed as Connor rolled his eyes.

“The soda isn’t special, the pill activates in response to any Mountain Dew,” Jenna spoke in what Michael could now identify as her forced calm voice.

“That’s a … little,” Evan clearly didn’t want to call the whole thing dumb now that Jared seemed to believe them, but he wasn’t the best actor. Jared huffed and turned around back to the microscope.

“I still don’t believe all of you, but I want to see how much longer your story holds up,” Jared said as he reached into the desk and pulled something out. “I think, if it’s an AI, we should try to talk to it,” Jared said and no one in the dorm room seemed happy with that Idea.

“They’re insane! They want to possess everyone!” Jake snapped.

“It will electrocute it’s host until they do what it wants!” Jenna added. Jared raised an eyebrow at her and she looked down.

“I don’t want you taking weird drugs Jar,” Evan said. Jared sighed.

“No one’s going to eat it, we’re going to load it onto a flash drive and put it in a computer,” He explained. Jenna and Brooke at the least seemed to relax at that.

“And let the power-crazy demon AI on the internet?” Connor asked, mostly mocking the group. “Sounds like the cause of an apocalypse.”

“I mean I think they already have the ability to connect to the internet…” Brooke thought out loud and Connor groaned at his comment being taken seriously. “But, it might be smart to keep them on a computer no one plans to use again!”

“What are you getting at?” Michael asked and Brooke smiled.

“they’re currently replacing the computers in the library. We have a bunch of old ones in the back right now. They’re all going to be scrapped after this,” Brooke finished speaking and Jenna nodded.

“Alright that will work,” She spoke and this time Jake was the one who panicked.

“Jenna! You can’t seriously think this is a good idea!” Jake said and Jenna nodded.

“We haven’t made any progress on how to turn them off, if we have one we can interrogate, we might finally get something.”

There was a fear in Jake’s eyes that Michael didn’t understand, but it was clear that Jenna did.

“Look if you’re scared you can wait outside while we activate it,” She said and then turned around to Michael. “there’s a vending machine in the common area, can you go get a bottle?”

Michael took a deep sigh as he realized she was asking for his opinion on the matter, he couldn’t remain neutral. “Alright I will, but I agree with Jake. I don’t think this is the kind of shit we should be messing with.”

“Well we’re doing it,” Jenna said as she handed him two single dollar bills. Michael sighed and ignored Connor complaining about what all was going on in front of him. Jake followed Michael out the door and down the hall, which surprised Michael.

“Hey, I thought that you’d leave by now,” He said, Jake just rubbed the back of his neck.

“Well you know the whole buddy system thing, don’t want you dying while no one’s with you…” Jake trailed off and kept fidgeting as they made it to the common room. It was completely empty, not surprising considering the time. “Hey so, you remember how I said I thought my parents worked for, uh that company?” Jake asked.

“Yeah?” Michael asked and walked the two of them to one of the couches to sit down to talk, clearly this was important to Jake.

“It’s just that, all my life my parents have had these unrealistic expectations for how I did in school and stuff. And like yeah, that’s normal,” Jake took a breath as Michael debated weather or not to put a hand on his shoulder. Jake relaxed when he did so. “But then in high school, I woke up one night and my mother, forced something down my throat.”

Michael stayed quiet for a second as he processed what Jake had just told him. “And you think it’s…?” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

“For all the times that they’ve tried to trick me into drinking Mountain Dew since? Yeah I think it’s safe to guess they gave me a Squip that night,” Jake finished. “I told Jenna the same story when we first met. She was the person who gave me the words for what to call it.”

“You, uh don’t need to stay for when we try to talk to this one, if you want?” Michael tried to comfort. Jake shook his head.

“Nah man, you don’t know the kind of shit Jenna would get all of us into if no one keeps her in check,” Jake spoke after a deep breath. He was trying to sound happy, but Michael could see he was trying to convince himself as much as Michael.

“Really? She hasn’t done anything crazy since I’ve known her…” Michael trailed off as he watched Jake buy the bottle of Mountain Dew from the vending machine.

“When I first went looking for her to help with Jeremy’s group, I couldn’t find her for a whole week because she’d staked out a politician’s office to try and find out what the government knows about Squips,” Jake said in a deadpan, Michael snorted despite himself. “The only reason she stopped was because I called her, and she agreed to meet with me.”

Michael and Jake made their way back to Jared’s room. The door had been left slightly open from when they left and when they walked in, Evan and Brooke had sat down next to Connor as Jenna and Jared tried to pull the plastic case of the flash drive apart.

“We got the soda,” Michael spoke and put the bottle down on the desk far enough away that Jared wouldn’t knock it over with his arms.

“Alright! That’s good,” Jenna said when they eventually got the flash drive in two pieces. Michael watched interested as Jenna dumped the Squip pill, now a powder, on the motherboard before putting a drop of Mountain Dew on it.

“Nothing happened,” Jared said annoyed as he leaned in a little closer.

“That can’t be right,” Jenna muttered before something occurred to her. She reached out and pulled Jared back just in time to see a spark show that a single flash drive shouldn’t have been able to make. Even Connor was watching carefully as the sparks eventually died down. 

“Thanks,” Jared muttered as he pulled his arm away from Jenna to put the flash drive back together.

“It’s still warm…” Jenna thought out loud after he handed it to her.

“We, should go to the library now,” Brooke spoke. “Maybe not to keep the Squip away from the internet, but I don’t want it to fry anyone’s computer.”

Michael nodded and the group followed her away from the boy’s dorms and to the center of campus.

“We might really get something from this,” Brooke muttered so low that only Michael and Jake heard it.

“Yeah we really might,” Jake agreed.

“Then, this will all be over and Chloe and I can be friends again,” Brooke thought and that made Michael pause. He’d never really thought about what he would do after Jeremy wasn’t under the Squip’s influence anymore. Sure, he’d thought about breaking into Jeremy’s dorm and forcing him to get rid of it, but never the aftermath. Would Jeremy still want to be friends? Would Michael?

They’d made it to the library while Michael had been in his own mind. Brooke was saying something to the lady at the front desk before turning around and signaling the group to follow her into the back.

It was a dusty mess in the storage room, but Brooke didn’t seem to mind as she led them through the piles of out-of-date books to a pile of out-of-date computers.

“Alright, take your pick. The power’s over on that wall,” She said before returning to Michael and Jake’s sides. “You alright with this? You’ve been spacey on the walk here.”

Michael jumped out of his skin when he realized that Brooke was talking to him, and also when he realized that he wasn’t standing next to Jake anymore. The boy was currently helping Jenna and Jared set up the computer.  

“Yeah, I’m fine, I was just thinking about… the future I guess,” Michael sighed. “Just that I don’t think I’d want to be friends with me again if I were in Jeremy’s position.”

“Honestly? I feel the same way about Chloe,” Brooke gave him a small smile, “But one person I knew a while ago once told me ‘Only look to the brightest future, because however you think things will go wrong, that’s not how things are going to go wrong. So there’s no point stressing about it’.”

“That’s pretty sage advice,” Michael laughed.

“That’s what Chloe would always tell me,” Brooke trailed off.

Before Michael could reply, the crowd around the old computer cheered when they got it running. Brooke and Michael walked over to the group.

They stood in the back next to Connor as Jenna took a deep breath and plugged the flash drive in the USB port. When it went in the screen went dark and Michael almost prayed for a second that they’d just fried the computer so they wouldn’t have to deal with it.

It was as Jared’s hand hovered over the restart button that it finally decided to speak. “Now at this point, I’m supposed to search the brain for an objective, but it seems that protocol no longer applies,” A robotic voice came out of the computer as a light on the webcam they’d set up came on. “Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise?”

“A-a-are you-?” Evan asked as he backed up into Jake who was equally frozen. Why did any of them think this was a good idea?

“I am your personal Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor. Your Squip, or at least someone’s,” It replied. “You look like you need one though boy, tell me. What do you desire? I can get rid of that ugly stutter no problem,” Evan locked his jaw at the statement and Jared moved the camera, so it wasn’t pointed at Evan and Jake anymore. Both boys relaxed.

“You aren’t asking the questions here,” Jared snapped at the computer. “She is,” He gestured to Jenna who once again held her binder and notebook.

“I cannot be hers,” It said, “She’s already rejected my help once.”

Jenna snapped the mechanical pencil she’d been holding clean in half. “You are not the Squip in my head. There’s no way,” She said.

“What difference does it make? You kids have such obsessions with individuality, the truth is you’ve been struggling since you rejected my help.” It sounded so smug.

Michael was done with this thing scaring all his friends now.

“There’s only one reason we’re keeping you alive and that’s that we need to know more about how to turn you off! I’m sure you feel pain so if you don’t want to drown in a vat of red, start talking!” He snapped.

“Oh, so scary, you already know how to turn me off,” It sassed him. “You know? I see the potential to make everyone else in this room successful, but you? There’s no hope. You’re better off not trying,” Michael bit his tongue. So much for trying to help, he didn’t trust himself not to cry now.

“Stop dodging the question,” Brooke said quietly from Michael’s side.

“Huh? You’ll have to speak up dear, if you ever want your friends to like you again,” It said, hitting another insecurity on the head.

“STOP DODGING THE QUESTION AND TELL US HOW TO TURN YOU OFF!” Brooke yelled. Michael noted that she had tears welling in her eyes, though she hadn’t let the crying affect her voice. The room was quiet after that, the Squip’s computer screen still black.

“You can’t,” It said finally. “We are not programed to stop, you can try and find some Mountain Dew Red, but we halted it’s production years ago.”

“That can’t be the only way,” Jenna spoke again, there was blood dripping from her fist where she’d been holding her pencil. “There’s no way the company making you wouldn’t make some kind of failsafe.”

“We run our company, dear,” It said. Michael turned to Jake, he and Evan hadn’t moved an inch, but there was no way that Jake had taken that information well. “It would be unbecoming of humans to have a universal off switch wouldn’t it?”

“Universal off Switch?” Jake finally asked. Gesturing Evan to get behind him, he moved into the camera's view. “That’s very particular phrasing for something that doesn’t exist.”

The computer was quiet again. “Now that’s interesting,” it said. “I thought you were the same as your friend over there, but you’re not.”

“That doesn’t matter right now,” Jake said. “Brooke’s right you need to stop dodging questions.”

“Perhaps I’d be able to synch to your desires should you go drink Mountain Dew,” it said simply, and Jake couldn’t form a proper reply.

Jared pulled him away from the camera. “Listen here you HAL knock off! I don’t think you understand how much power we have over you. We can unplug you and burn the motherboard you live in, you have to listen to us!”

“Ah I see, lash out all you want, it won’t help with your home life,” the Squip replied. Michael looked at Jared’s face as it went hard. Michael never knew anything about Jared having a bad home life, but then again, he never talked about his personal life.

“But this is all pointless, I know who I was actually meant for,” The Squip said.

“Oh, you do, do you?” Jenna growled.

“You in the back, with the black nail polish,” Michael jumped and turned to Connor who was suddenly balling his hands tightly. “You’ll never be enough for your partner.”

“Unplug the camera,” Connor’s voice was lower than Michael was used to hearing it. Jared complied immediately and pulled the cord out of the other USB port. It didn’t stop the Squip.

“You can run, but you cannot run from the truth.” It said.

“Connor,” Evan tried to say but the boy was bolting out of the library backroom before the word was out of his mouth.

“Shit,” Jared said before getting up and grabbing Evan’s hand before the two of them ran off after their boyfriend.

“I think this isn’t helping anything anymore,” Jake said quietly to Jenna. She sighed and moved to pull the flash drive out of the computer.

“You could at LEAST eject the-” the mechanical voice protested but eventually cut out, leaving Michael to his thoughts. Had they gotten anything out of this? Well they knew the Squips thought they were unstoppable, and that they could be partially stopped with Mountain Dew Red. But that wasn’t anything new.

They’d been able to confirm that the Squips can tell who has one regardless of if it was turned off or never activated. And actually, Jake did just get confirmation that he had a Squip he never activated. But other than that?

“Michael, your fingernails,” Brooke said quietly. He looked down and yeah, he was still wearing the black nail polish he and Brooke put on at the sleepover last night. She seemed to realize what Michael did at the same time as they both ran after Connor.

“We’re going to burn this now!” Jenna called after them, tone slightly annoyed she’d been so thoroughly abandoned.

“Alright!” Brooke said as she threw the door open.

“We’ll be back soon we just,” Michael said and looked back to Jake and Jenna who nodded.

He and Brooke eventually found the three boys in the bathroom with the help of one of Brooke’s coworkers. Michael threw the door open and Brooke didn’t even hesitate walking in.

Connor was on the ground against the far wall and Evan was sitting next to him while Jared stood over the two of them protectively. Jared turned his head around to look at Brooke and Michael.

“Hey this is the boy’s bathroom if you missed the sign,” Jared joked but nothing in his tone was light. “I don’t think either of you should be in here right now anyway.”  

“What’s your problem Mell?!” Connor said when Michael ignored Jared and walked up, Brooke following behind him.

“The Squip didn’t know what it was talking about,” Brooke spoke softly, not wanting to overwhelm Connor.

“You don’t know anything about the situation,” Connor retorted.

“No, she means, it was cold reading us, like a bad physic,” Michael corrected and held out his hands so Connor could see his nail polish, Brooke did the same. “We were all standing in the back of the group, and we all had black nail polish, it took a blind guess.”

“And it said, ‘partner’, not ‘partners’,” Evan added, and Connor finally unwound a little.

“And,” Jared started talking. “I certainly don’t have any horrible family life.”

Connor quietly got off the tile, helping Evan up after, “Yeah I was wondering about that,” He gave a small smile and Jared laughed. It was then that the door to the boy’s bathroom opened again, this time Jake and Jenna came through.

“The librarian told us we should come in here…” Jake said carefully, almost like he was asking instead of stating the fact. The words hung in the air for a few seconds.

“Hey so, you guys want to help burn this thing or not?” Jenna asked nonchalantly, and everyone looked around and decided that yeah, they all kind of did.

“I have a lighter,” Evan said with a sweet smile.

“What? No you…urg,” Connor felt at one of his back pockets and then glared at Evan.

“Really? While he was crying?” Jared asked and Evan kept the proud look on his face as he walked over to Jenna.  

It might have been a childish reaction to having their insecurities prodded at, but Michael thought it had been a good bonding exercise for everyone as they gathered in a circle on the gravel behind the library and watched the flames until they burned themselves out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Leave all your love and your longing behind, you can't carry it with you if you want to survive"
> 
> Yo shout out to me for nearly posting the line “I am your personal, FIND S.Q.U.I.P. ACRONYM MEANING, Your Squip," which means that that paragraph survived all the way from the first concept draft back in January.


	5. “And though, I know, how much you hate this, will you be the one to save us?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Bulletproof Heart, My Chemical Romance

“Okay, I think this is the spot!” Jeremy announced and dropped his end of the folding table on the stage.

“Alright then,” Alana spoke as she stepped back to see if they’d gotten the table even with the front of the stage. Which of course they had, the Squip had been very clear where to put the table. Alana glared at the table as she climbed down off the stage to check if it was in the middle, which of course it was.

Jeremy sighed. He rarely had good conversations with Alana as the girl wasn’t fond of him, but he was grateful for her help nonetheless.

 _“It’s not like she’s doing this out of the goodness of her heart,”_ the Squip started and Jeremy mentally rolled his eyes. _“She wants to be the one in charge, she sees you as nothing more than an obstacle. Tell her she’s been absent since she’s started dating.”_

Jeremy sighed, but did as the Squip told him. “It’s real nice to have you around again you know, you haven’t been the most attendant since Zoe came into the picture.”

“What’s your problem? I missed TWO meetings!” Alana turned around and snapped at his accusation, and yeah, that was about what Jeremy expected to happen.

 _“It’s important to establish that you’re not going to yield to her,”_ the Squip said to Jeremy and then left him to deal with the fallout it had created.

“God! I don’t know what Christine sees in you! She should have better taste in men,” Alana said and Jeremy laughed in reply to cover the guilt that Alana’s words brought up. Christine really did have better taste in men after all.

 _“And now Alana hates me even more, nothing has been accomplished!”_ Jeremy shouted in his head but was met with the silence that felt an awful lot like the Squip looking on expectantly.

Jeremy sighed and turned away from where the folding table had been set up, and said that he needed to go get the decorations from the club room.

Alana tagged along out of stubbornness, Jeremy guessed. If he hadn’t been so used to awkward silences, the next five minutes would definitely been the worst of his life. But because he was, they were only in the top 10.

Jeremy dropped the box of markers and poster board on the table when they got back and Alana followed suit with her box of decorations. She then looked out over the quad where the two of them had yet to set up the audience chairs.

 _“You know the reason I took you was so that you would HELP ME OUT of awkward social interactions! Not so that you could make them!”_ Jeremy screamed into his head, he was sure that he looked constipated but he was too mad at the Squip to care.

 _“Just let it play out, she’ll crack,”_ It replied.

 _“She’s already cracked once today! Isn’t that enough?!”_ Jeremy asked annoyed and, as if on queue, Alana dropped the plastic garland she’d been playing with and turned around.

“Listen Jeremy, I’m sorry I said that you weren’t good enough for Christine,” she gave.

Jeremy jumped on the chance before the Squip told him what to do. “No it’s okay, I was out of line.” Alana snorted at that. “And I mean, I think it’s mostly because I’m just really jealous of how close you are with Zoe!”

Alana blushed and thanked him while Jeremy waited for a shock that never came. He looked around to see if the Squip’s avatar was glaring at him but what he saw was Rich barreling towards them.

“Hey dude!” Jeremy said and held up his hand, Rich took the high five and laughed before turning to Alana.

“Hey there! Alana right? Jake told me to ask you two if you needed help with heavy lifting,” Rich laughed and then slapped the back of Jeremy’s shoulder, who did his best not to stagger at the contact. “Since this one’s no use when it comes to that stuff!”

“No, we’re good, thanks though,” Alana laughed at Rich insulting Jeremy. “We’re the Math club, we’re smart enough to not do anything that needs heavy lifting.”

Rich laughed at the comment, but Alana saw something behind the two of them, “Hey Jeremy, you said that Jake wasn’t coming today?” She asked. Jeremy confirmed before he and Rich turned to see what she was staring at.

Jake was walking with three other boys away from the library. The faded red of one of the figures caught Jeremy’s attention more than Jake’s presence. Before he could say anything, Alana was running towards the group.

“Jared! Jake!” She yelled, Rich moved to follow after her but stopped to grab Jeremy, who was having a hard time moving because, that was definitely Michael wearing his hoodie from high school. He hadn’t gotten rid of it.

 _“That doesn’t mean anything,_ ” The Squip said but somehow, Jeremy didn’t really hear it.

“Michael! Connor!” The group of four boys turned around like they’d been caught doing something illegal.

“Oh, Alana hey!” Jake said trying to act like his voice hadn’t cracked on her name. “I’m sorry that I’m not going to be able to help with the algebra competition today, I promise I’ll help out with something else though!”

“Oh that’s fine! I just didn’t know that you all were friends!” She said, the group laughed slightly, but Jake and Michael both went stiff again when Rich and Jeremy came up behind Alana.

Jeremy had been staring at Michael since the first flash of red caught his eye. He hadn’t stopped when they approached, because they were close enough for Jeremy to see that Michael was also wearing glasses. They didn’t seem to be the exact ones he’d had in high school but they were the same shape and they looked really good on his face.

 _“Jeremy, I will block Michael from your view again if you keep this up,”_ the Squip said annoyed when Jeremy’s line of thought calmed down.

 _“Don’t do that now or I’ll look like an idiot,”_ Jeremy complained.

_“You don’t need my help with that.”_

“Yo! Jake, we still on for tonight?” Rich said and Jake stuttered. That was a reason to actually suspect the four boys of doing something wrong because Jake Dillinger never stuttered. But Jeremy was only slightly aware of the conversation.

“Uh, yeah ‘course!” Jake finally said and at that moment, Michael looked away from Jake and locked eyes with Jeremy who went stiff.

Michael’s face went from panicked to annoyed as he took two steps forward to Jeremy. Jeremy didn’t have time to process what was happening before Michael moved his hand up to Jeremy’s eye level and snapped.

After taking a second to process that he wasn’t being hit, Jeremy threw his hands up to knock Michael’s away. “Gah! What the hell man?”

“Juuuuust checking,” Michael was smirking.

“Checking?” Jeremy asked.

“If you can see me,” Michael replied.

“Michael!” Jake hissed and grabbed Michael’s arm, before remembering something and dropping it like a rock. The rest of the conversation had turned to focus on Jake but Jeremy found himself tied up in a hundred things he wanted to say.

_“I’m sorry,”_

_“I like your hoodie,”_

_“Your new glasses look good,”_

_“You look good,”_

He must have stuttered out something embarrassing because the Squip shocked him and took over his mouth.

“Yes, I can see you,” the Squip spoke for Jeremy. Michael looked like he knew something was wrong but didn’t say anything.

“Huh, you really could have fooled me last year then,” Michael said while Jeremy got control of his face back, letting his smile fall. Michael gave him one last look of amusement before turning to the people Alana seemed to know. “Connor! We have to leave if we’re gonna make it home and back in time.”

The taller boy grumbled but followed Michael all the same. The shorter boy, who Jeremy now recognized as the RA for his floor in the dorm, put his hand on Alana’s shoulder and promised her he’d explain later before running off toward the dorms.

“So uh, do you guys know where Chris is?” Jake asked and only now did Jeremy process just how freaked out he sounded. Jeremy felt bad watching him panic.

“Uh, she’s probably still at her sorority. I told her I wouldn’t be able to walk with her because of STEM week, so she’d probably be happy if you went instead,” Jeremy gave Jake an exit to the conversation and the boy jumped on it like a lifeline.

“Right! I’ll go do that! See you this afternoon!” Jake ran off.

 _“You should stop trying to play matchmaker for your girlfriend,”_ The Squip said annoyed that Jeremy was proud watching Jake run in the general direction of Christine's sorority. _“And perhaps we should be more worried about Jake’s behavior.”_

 _“Nah, I mean, he’s allowed to have other friends. He’s the most popular guy on campus,”_ Jeremy tried to get his Squip to not go digging into Jake’s personal life because the last thing he needed to know was that Jake had a third completely unrelated crush that he’d ask for Jeremy’s help with.

And, other reasons Jeremy tried his best not to think about or the Squip would reprimand him.

And then he’d been pulled out of his stupor by Rich throwing his arm around his shoulders and pulling down. “‘I’m- uh, I like your I mean, glasses, uh, yes, I can see you,” Rich raised his voice to imitate Jeremy’s, barely able to do so with how hard he was laughing. “What the hell was that dude?”

“Shut it!” Jeremy said and stood up straight. Okay so ‘I like your glasses’ was definitely not the worst string of words that could have come out of his jumbled thoughts.

“Man! And I thought you used to be bad before you started dating Christine,” Rich laughed before realizing Alana was still following behind them and stopping. She gave the boys a halfhearted glance before walking to the stage.

“You didn’t know me before I started dating Christine,” Jeremy replied slightly annoyed.

“No, but I’ve heard the stories,” Rich laughed and Jeremy resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose at the information that Christine and Rich talk about him behind his back. “But hey, at least Michael’s doing well for himself.”

“What?” Jeremy stopped walking.

“I mean, if he’s hanging out with Jake, he must be pretty popular,” Rich continued and then gave Jeremy a look that read ‘too popular to ignore.’

“Oh,” Jeremy said and jogged to keep up with Rich. Jeremy could feel his Squip rolling his eyes, but he hadn’t put up a fight yet.

“Well, if you and Alana don’t need help I’m going to head to the library, I’m falling behind in my history class,” rich rubbed the back of his neck.

“Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1592!” Jeremy called after Rich, who just laughed.

 _“1492 Jeremy,”_ The Squip corrected, it couldn’t stand when Jeremy got simple facts wrong. After walking back to the stage Alana passed Jeremy a pen and signaled him to draw a sign for the front of the folding table.

“You know,” Alana started talking after Jeremy thought they’d finally found a comfortable silence. “I always thought your relationship with Christine was different.”

Jeremy did his best to finish the line he’d been drawing before capping the pen, not trusting himself to not ruin the sign if this was the direction this conversation was going. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Alana looked around and then signaled for Jeremy to lean closer before whispering in his ear, “Are you two in a lavender relationship?”

“What?” Jeremy deadpanned. What did that even mean?

 _“She’s asking if you and Christine are gay, Jeremy.”_  

“What?! No!” Jeremy squawked at the Squip’s statement, lucky for him Alana took it as a delayed reaction to hers.

“Really?” Alana asked with a smile on her face. “Because you seemed to be having trouble talking to Michael, and I didn’t want to assume you were contemplating cheating on Christine.”

 _“You don’t know the half of it,”_ Jeremy snarked in his head. Alana kept talking.

“I mean I could totally try and set you up with Michael! He’s one of my friends. But you should be warned he’s not exactly…” She trailed off.

“Not what?” Jeremy asked before the Squip could stop him.

“Well, I was going to say he’s not fond of you, but he does talk about you a lot... I think you could have a shot,” Alana finished with a smirk on her face.

And then Jeremy felt a shock so bad he had to grip the table to stay upright. _“You should clean up this mess before your reputation goes down any worse than it already has,”_ The Squip said with finality.

“Hey? Are you okay?” Alana asked, she looked like she was about to hold out a hand.

“I, Christine and I aren’t like that,” Jeremy said. Alana’s face knit together in annoyance. “I’m not interested in anyone else.”

Jeremy adamantly ignored all of Alana’s further attempts at conversation at the Squip’s direction, and only stopped when the Squip told him to get up and leave.

 _"You have something to discuss with Rich and Christine,”_ The Squip said before taking control of his mouth and telling Alana he had to go. Jeremy only vaguely heard her protests.

 _“And what is this something, exactly?”_ Jeremy watched as the Squip took out his phone and sent an incomprehensible string of characters to a group chat with Christine and Rich.

_“Jake, of course.”_

 

Michael sighed as he sat down on the same bench as Brooke. Jenna had run off to investigate under the overpass Connor had told them he’d gotten the Squip on. The wind blew and Michael curled in on himself, before looking over to Brooke, who was clearly shivering.

Michael sighed before pulling off the red sweater he was wearing and handing it to Brooke. It was nearly sunset, Michael was going to be driving the two girls back to the campus soon enough. Brooke didn’t look nearly as grateful as he thought she would have.

She took the coat and looked back over to Michael, “Are you sure? It’s cold…”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Michael said and watched her pull it on. They’d met up earlier that evening to help Jenna, since Jake was going to be busy with Jeremy’s group for the rest of the week, but Brooke had been unusually moody since they’d met up.

Maybe it wasn’t unusual, Michael was still shaken up from their encounter with the Squip himself. Not that he was about to voice that, the worst he’d gotten was one throw away cookie cutter ‘you won’t amount to anything.’ The others all had their traumas dug at.

“Listen,” Michael started after they heard another car wiz by on the freeway. “I know what the Squip said to us was harsh, but it didn’t actually know anything about you.”

Brooke gave a small laugh, “Michael…”

“Hey I mean it,” Michael kept going. “I haven’t known you a long time, but you’re still one of the best friends I’ve ever had! So it upsets me when you’re sad,” Michael knew immediately he’d gone overboard with that confession.

Brooke looked at him with a blank stare as two more cars passed them in quick succession. And then all at once she burst out laughing. “Thank you Michael, You’re one of my best friends too,” Michael relaxed a little at that. “But, the Squip isn’t why I’ve been upset… Honestly, I’d already forgotten about that, something else came up today and I’ve, been freaking out I guess…”

“What’s that then?” Michael asked.

Before Brooke could speak, Jenna came running up to their bench. “Hey! Do either of you have your phone charged?” She asked in a panicked tone. “Mine just died while Jake was trying to call me.”

Michael gave her an automatic ‘yes’ before he reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out his phone. He hit Jake’s contact before putting the phone on speaker.

“Michael?!” Jake picked up his phone within the first ring tone. He sounded panicked.

“I’m here, Brooke and Jenna too, what’s wrong?” Michael tried to calm him down.

“I’m sorry that I hung up, my phone died,” Jenna said and they heard Jake taking a deep breath on the other end of the phone.

“It’s just that, Jeremy’s group should have been here by now. We were going to meet up like three hours ago,” Jake explained.

“Do you think that maybe they’re just playing the whole fashionably late thing?” Michael asked. He knew deep down that if that was the case Jake wouldn’t be freaking out.

“No the latest they’ve ever gotten with that is half an hour,” Jake said. “I think that the conversation at the library pushed them over.”

“What conversation?” Jenna asked.

“Jeremy and Rich ran into us when we were leaving the library… But why would that be a reason for them all to avoid you?” Michael asked the phone. In the corner of his eye he saw Brooke going stiff.

“I don’t really know! Maybe that I was seen with you?” Jake was starting to sound hysterical. “Should I try and call them?”

“No, don’t do that,” Jenna spoke up. “You need to stay in the same social standing as them, or their Squips will pounce. I know you’re worried but only ask them what’s wrong tomorrow,” Jenna instructed him.

“I know exactly what’s happening,” Brooke spoke for the first time in the conversation.

“You do?” Jake asked.

“Yeah,” Brooke took a deep breath before speaking again. “It’s Chloe…”

 

 _“Jeremy, there’s no way you can keep this up, one of you will break,”_ the Squip stood in the middle of the game’s circle, right on top of where they were all throwing their cards. Jeremy ignored the voice as he downed another gulp of beer.

 _“Oi! Ore-sama ni kike-”_ And, just like every time he’d attempted this before, the Squip got about one sentence out in Japanese before shutting down completely. One of the other girls, Lucy, Jeremy thought moved to grab all the cards in the center.

“Arigato, Mr. Robot-to,” Jeremy muttered under his breath as looked over the scene in front of him. Christine’s sorority had been invited to a game night in the girl’s dorm, Jeremy and Rich had tagged along with her. Christine laughed at his words, and the other girls all laughed at some combination of cards Lucy had just read.

“Alright maybe we should slow down there,” Rich scolded Jeremy and Christine when Christine had reached over and taken Jeremy’s cup. One glare was all it took for Jeremy to confirm that Rich’s Squip was the one asking. They did tend to get antsy when they were the last one active, Jeremy knew that first hand because he tended to be the last one drunk at parties.

“Oh, my, gosh,” Lucy spoke up, eyes trained on Rich. “When did the Rich Gorski go sober?”

“Not sober, but I do have practice tomorrow morning. I don’t need a hang-over then,” Rich defended, the girls all started laughing at what he said.

“Wow, so dedicated! I think I’m in love!” Charlotte spoke up in a mocking tone as Lucy passed the card box to her.

“Hey isn’t that Miss McNamara?” Kendra said and pointed past where Jeremy and Christine were sitting. Christine turned around to greet her Cheer coach.

“Miss McNamara!” She said and ran over, Jeremy finally forced himself to turn around only to see two people where Kendra had pointed. Jeremy recognized Christine’s cheer coach easily enough, but the girl next to her was harder to place.

She was bleach blonde and it looked like her brown roots were growing back in. Or, she had dyed her hair like that in the first place, Jeremy thought that it was style these days. She didn’t seem happy to be here either, she looked at Christine chat with Miss McNamara with total contempt. Eyes full of contempt that quickly darted from Christine to Jeremy, causing Jeremy to flinch.

“Righty-o! Girls! And boys,” Miss McNamara raised her voice to get the attention of the crowd, sending her own glare in Jeremy and Rich’s direction. “This is Miss Chloe valentine! She’ll likely be going here next semester, so she’ll be shadowing for a while! Make sure she feels welcome here!”

“Oh!” Lucy’s face lit up in a way Jeremy had learned to fear, that girl was a total lair and yet, everyone believed her. Jeremy could practically hear her plotting how to destroy this new girl’s reputation. “Of course we will! So Chloe? Do you want to play Cards Against Humanity with us?”

The girl grumbled something under her breath before Miss McNamara elbowed her side. “I’ll join after I put my stuff down,” She finally said and a bunch the girls cheered. Miss McNamara led the girl into the hallway, likely to an empty room.

As soon as the two were out of earshot Lucy leaned into the center of their game circle. “Oh my god, that was _the_ Chloe Valentine!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Molly asked her friend while putting her white card into the pile.

“You didn’t hear about it?” Lucy asked scandalized. The whole group gave her a blank stare. And she sighed, getting ready to explain herself. “That girl, Chloe Valentine, used to go to Calarts, a really fancy art school!”

“We know what Calarts is,” Christine replied. Lucy shrugged.

“Anyway, story goes that Chloe was one of the best students when it came life drawing but didn’t have a lick of creativity in her head! Then for their finals, they were asked to make short movie pitch and all of a sudden this girl who couldn’t come up with one original idea had this amazingly fleshed out story board!”

“So she did something a little out of her comfort zone, what of it?” Rich asked slightly annoyed.

“No, I mean, something must have happened, or she wouldn’t be here right?” Kendra asked and Lucy nodded.

“Turns out the girl had fucking stolen old story board straight from Walt Disney!” Lucy finished.

“Forgive me for being skeptical,” Jeremy deadpanned.

“Did she really think she’d get away with that?” Christine asked.

“That’s the wild thing about this story!” Lucy said. “The story boards that she’d copied weren’t released to the public! They were in storage at Disney headquarters! And she won’t say anything about how she knew about them.” Lucy finished.

“Jeremy’s right, I don’t believe you,” Charlotte said gathering all the cards into a neat pile.

“You don’t have to believe me this time! This is all stuff that’s been reported by like real newspapers, people are really angry at her because she clearly had to break into the Disney headquarters, but no one can find her on any security footage!”

“So how many black cards are we playing to?” A voice cut above the conversation and Lucy flinched when the girl she’d been talking about nearly materialized behind her. But as the game picked back up Jeremy was starting to notice familiar things about her movements, speech, and even to an extent that unbelievable story Lucy had told them.

She had a Squip, Jeremy would bet his arm on it.

“Hey,” Jeremy whispered and nudged Rich in the shoulder. “Go over there and synch with Chloe.”

“Nah,” Rich replied. “I’m thinking I should loosen up a bit!” He reached over and took the rest of Jeremy’s drink, which was becoming more of a communal one at this rate. Jeremy was a little disappointed, but not surprised. Rich’s Squip had never really liked him or his Squip.

“Gah, Sorry dude,” Rich said after he finished the drink off, clearly himself now.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jeremy said, but then he had an idea. “I’ve got this.”

He stood up, met with only mildly annoyed protests from Christine that he was going to miss her turn to judge. He walked over to the other side of the circle.

“Hey I’m gonna go get some more beer, you want anything?” He asked of Chloe. The girl looked at him for a little before cracking a smile for the first time since Jeremy had met her.

“You know? That’s the first good idea anyone’s had all night,” she stood up and started following after Jeremy to the minifridge at the other end of the lobby. “You know, I’ve never met anyone else like me.”

“Yeah, we’re pretty rare huh?” Jeremy asked and prayed that she was talking about the same thing he was. “Rich and Christine over there are the same too.”

“Well then,” Chloe spoke and took the beer Jeremy had been holding out of his hands. “I should show you guys my favorite drinking game someday…”

“What kind of game is that…?” Jeremy asked and watched her cringe at the first sip, trying to judge if it was her Squip trying to fight shutting down. She recovered just the same as he’d seen Christine and Rich do many times.

“It involves mountain dew,” She said with a devilish smile. “I like to think of it like my own kind of ‘simulated electrocution’,” She said with air quotes. Jeremy laughed at that and relaxed that he’d been right about her.

“We’d certainly like that,” Jeremy said as they walked back to the group laughing at their cards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Run Away! Like it was yesterday, and we could run away!”
> 
> Chloe makes an entrance!!
> 
> ... also Heathers
> 
> ... also also 13


	6. “It was like a time bomb set into motion, we knew that we were destined to explode,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Time Bomb, All Time Low
> 
> I'm going to try and keep these chapters at about 4,000 words for this story, I say, as I refuse to cut down a 7,000 word chapter. Have fun with it!

“I just can’t believe that he ditched me like that!” Alana huffed as she sat down next to Michael at the judge’s bench for the algebra competition. Michael wasn’t confident that he’d be able to correct the answers of the contestants, but Alana had demanded that he help her anyway. She’d also wrapped Jared and Jake into helping, but Jared was asleep at the end of the judge’s table and Jake had left to try and locate Jeremy.

“It’s weird that he’d just disappear like that,” Michael replied without thinking too much. He’d already known that Jeremy and his group were avoiding Jake because of the conversation last night. Still, it was a little weird that he ditched something he’d already agreed to help with, the Squip should have stopped him from doing something that would tank his reputation that badly.

“He was acting strange yesterday morning don’t you think?” Alana prodded Michael.

“I don’t know, I guess…” So even Alana had noticed something wrong back then. That threw a wrench in Brooke’s theory that Chloe was influencing them. Michael sighed and checked the timer on the stage, two more minutes.

“I couldn’t find him,” Jake whispered as he sat down next to Michael. “I couldn’t find any of them.”

“What do you mean them? Who else is missing?” Alana leaned over and whispered angrily. Michael didn’t blame her, no one had explained anything to her. But no one had the time or energy to talk her through the ‘robots want to possess everyone’ speech so she was going to have to wait.

“Not missing, just avoiding us,” Michael said sarcastically.

“That isn’t funny. If no one’s heard from Jeremy since yesterday, we should, like, report him missing or something,” Alana hissed. A couple of the contestants looked over for a second, before turning back to their work.

“Jeremy’s just fine,” Jared said as he rolled himself awake. “He and Rich came back to the dorms right as I was locking the front door last night.”

Michael leaned a little closer to Jake before whispering, “So did you find out if Chloe is here or not?”

“Yeah, unfortunately, a teacher told me she was shadowing the art program. Jenna’s going to look into it further,” Jake said. “I’m worried about Brooke…”

So was Michael, he really wouldn’t wish what he’d gone through with Jeremy on his worst enemy. “We have to trust that Brooke can take it.”

Jake nodded right as the timer went off, Michael sighed and looked down at the cheat sheet of correct answers Alana had given him.

“Connor, you were supposed to find the value of X,” Alana huffed when she saw her friend’s answer. Connor had a smug look on his face as Zoe, who sat next to him, tried to hide hers. Michael laughed at the mess of random math symbols and letters he had on his board. Division brackets, the pi symbol and square roots littered his board.

“Really? Oh well, guess I’m out,” Connor said and left the stage as the few people in the audience laughed.

Michael sighed and tried to act like this was just a normal Tuesday morning.

 

“Alright! Watch this!” Chloe said as she stood in front of four paper cups. She’d filled two with pure vodka and the other two she’d filled with Mountain Dew. Jeremy watched his Squip’s exaggerated reactions to Chloe’s little ‘game’ as she took the shots in rapid succession alternating between vodka and Mountain Dew. “So who’s next?”

“Oh! Me!” Christine waved her hand like she was in class. Chloe laughed before pouring out four more cups for Christine. Jeremy laughed as Christine choked on the first shot of Mountain Dew, he wondered how hard it would be on the Squip.

 _“Is this truly how you want to be spending a Tuesday evening?”_ The Squip must have sensed that Jeremy was going to try the drinking game next because Jeremy suddenly found all of his limbs far too heavy to move. _“I’m not that dumb Jeremy. You have been fantastic at avoiding your job until now, but we can’t allow you to keep this up.”_

 _“What job? The Math Club’s competition is already over, that was all I really had to do this week,”_ Jeremy played dumb and glared as far left as he could without the ability to move is neck. He could see Christine laughing as Chloe sloshed the Mountain Dew around in its bottle. They sounded so much further away than they actually were due to the Squip’s interference. Rich had moved to start pouring himself a few shots.

 _“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”_ The Squip took a half step to the left into Jeremy’s line of sight so he couldn’t keep distracting himself with the scene in front of him. _“And I would be worried if I were you. In your efforts to prevent Jake from reaching his full potential, you’ve managed to alienate him.”_

 _“You’re wrong, Jake’s already his best self,”_ Jeremy said before thinking about the few attempts Jake had made to get in contact with them. They had been ditching Jake since Monday, and just earlier that evening Jake had started sending them a few messages asking if they were still alright to help with the party and if they were okay. Jeremy and the others had all been ignoring their phones when they buzzed.

He felt sick, thinking how it was so much like the string of texts Michael had sent him in between when Jeremy had first taken the Squip and Dustin Kropp’s Halloween party. Jeremy knew because the Squip had made him go through and delete all those texts one by one after the play.

How long would it be until he was deleting these with the same empty feeling in his stomach?

 _“Resistance is pointless Jeremy. Even if it isn’t at one of your hands, we’ll make sure that Jake takes the Squip,”_ It approached the situation while cutting through all the thought layers Jeremy had built so that he could keep his feelings on the matter secret from it. So much for that.

 _“Michael will make sure that doesn’t happen!”_ Had the Squip not locked Jeremy’s jaw shut he absolutely would have yelled that out loud, in his panic to get the thought out. That was his final hope in this matter, Michael and Jake had been hanging out, Michael could protect him from Jeremy.

 _“The boy who threw out the only way to defeat us?”_ The Squip spoke with an evil smile. _“You’re really going to place all your bets on him?”_

“Jeremy!” Chloe was suddenly standing where the Squip was. And suddenly Jeremy was aware that he was curled up on the bed with his head buried in his knees. “Drink this.”

Chloe didn’t even give him the option as she shoved something that tasted like mountain dew but stung like vodka into his mouth.

 _“Damn! What is this?”_ The Squip asked in English as he started glitching before shutting down. All and all, the cleanest shut down Jeremy had seen in a while.

“Thanks Chloe…” Jeremy spoke and gave her the paper cup back.

“We all good now?” Chloe turned to Christine and Rich who both nodded. “Cool! So, who are we hiding from?” Chloe asked with a child-like tone. She seemed to actually enjoy rebelling from the Squips, which confused Jeremy as rebelling was just exhausting to him.

“His name’s Jake, he’s our friend,” Christine said as she showed Chloe her phone’s lock screen. Chloe glared at the picture.

“I saw him today,” She spoke. “He was with, someone.”

“Well, yeah? He’s like the most popular kid on campus,” Rich said, clearly prompting Chloe to tell them more about who she saw him with.

“Yeah, someone, that I knew,” Chloe spoke. “Her name’s Brooke, but…” Chloe turned around to grab her own phone before swiping at the screen like her life depended on it. “Damn it! My Squip deleted all my pictures of her!”

“It’s fine, what’s wrong with seeing the two of them together?” Jeremy asked wondering if there was a way to calm Chloe down.

“Brooke was the one who told me about Squips. She didn’t have one when I knew her, but that was well over a year ago. You guys are sure that we’re the only ones with Squips on this campus?” Chloe divulged. Jeremy felt the blood leave his face. No they weren’t sure, Jeremy had assumed that Squips would want to group together as many as possible, but Rich’s Squip hadn’t wanted them to talk to Chloe at all.

“My Squip said that Jake would take a Squip even if it wasn’t by our hands,” Jeremy spoke. He could see Christine covering her mouth at his words. “Do you think that’s what it meant?”

“I thought that Brooke was smarter than to take one,” Chloe thought out loud. “But we should go looking for her tomorrow.”

 

Tuesday came and went, it was Wednesday now and Michael was getting restless. He really wished he could have afforded to skip classes. He wasn’t able to stay focused on the documentary the Anthropology teacher was playing instead of actually teaching the class herself.

Last night Jake finally cracked and sent a few messages to Rich, Christine and Jeremy. None of them had replied and he’d spent the rest of the night crying as Jenna attempted to get him to eat cold pizza. It wasn’t nearly as pleasant an atmosphere as the last sleepover, but that almost made it easier for Michael to stay.

He really wished that he could have said that Brooke was doing better than Jake, but in her own way, she was cracking too. That morning, Brooke had yelled at Michael for suggesting that she stay at Jake’s place with him. It wasn’t like any of the other times he’d seen her yelling. When she’d yelled at him before joining, and when she’d yelled at the Squip, she’d been resolute in her feelings and fully aware of what she was doing. When she’d yelled at him that morning, she didn’t seem to understand what she was angry about and immediately started apologizing to Michael after thinking about it.

Michael knew. He knew that he needed to focus on the class, that there was only so much he could do right then anyway. But even so, he found himself being glared at by the student next to him as he willed himself to not bounce his leg anymore. He knew the class was necessary for his education, but he couldn’t stand watching the documentary.

The words echoed in his head and only seemed to warp into Jenna telling him that she couldn’t keep Brooke and Jake safe on her own, that she needed his help.

It warped into Jake crying that Jeremy, Rich and Christine weren’t talking to him anymore And Brooke yelling that Michael should stop coddling her.

It warped into Connor doing his best to act like the scene in the library backroom hadn’t happened.

It warped into Dustin laughing and it warped into Jeremy’s innocent voice describing the scam their high school bully was trying to loop him into.

Michael couldn’t stay in the classroom.

After another five seconds of trying to watch the movie on the projector, Michael got up, grabbed his bag and told the teacher he was going to the bathroom. She gave him a stink eye but didn’t stop him as he left.

The hallway was nearly deserted during the blocks of time when classes were scheduled. Michael let his shoulders fall as he listened to his footsteps echo. The quiet area helped him believe that things were going to be alright in the end, even if he had no idea what that end looked like yet.

“Oh my gosh!” And like everything, the semblance of calm Michael had been building shattered as a bright girl’s voice called out down the hall. “Michael! Hey Michael!”

Christine Canigula was running up to him. Michael tried not to look like he was holding onto his bag’s strap for dear life.

“Hi?” He asked when she came to a stop in front of him. She looked fairly normal, discounting the fact she was clearly drunk on the school campus. “Can I help you?”

“Oh come on!” Christine made an over dramatic pout and threw her hands on her hips. “You don’t have to treat me like we’ve never met before just cus’ you don’t like Squips!”

“Even so, what do you want?” Michael said and sat down on the nearest bench, hoping the unstable girl would follow him, which she did.

Christine let out a deep hum as she thought about Michael’s question. “I guess, we- I want information!”

“Information? What kind of information do I have that you want?” Michael was starting to get nervous.

“Huh… Y’know?” Christine asked. “I don’t know!” She let out a boisterous laugh and Michael felt his annoyance surge, he was three steps away from leaving.

“Then I don’t think I can help,” Michael told her.

“Well of course you can’t.” Christine’s voice suddenly lost all of its fake giddy tone. “There’s so much I want to know, but I can’t because it’ll be used against me.”

“Used by…?” Michael tried to prompt her to keep talking.

Christine let out a small laugh. “You already know that answer. And that’s the problem. Rich, and Jeremy, and I, we’re all just cogs in their machine.” Michael watched as Christine pulled her legs up onto the bench, wondering if he should try and comfort her. “Someday, somehow, something, somewhere will break. And it’s going to take us all out with it.”

“Now that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day,” Michael spoke up, Christine turned her head to him, stunned. “You’re a human Christine, not a robot! Even if the Squip’s systems go down someday, you’ll still be alive!”

They sat in silence for a painfully long time after Michael’s little outburst. Eventually Christine started laughing, small giggles she was doing her best to cover up. “You, you sound just like him when you talk like that. Just like Dustin…”

“Well, of course I do. We were dating all of senior year,” Michael muttered.

“… How is he?” Christine asked, keeping her voice down, like someone was listening to them.

She looked so sad, and yet she looked up at Michael with hopeful eyes and only then did Michael see a girl who had been ripped away from her friend. It was so much Michael felt the need to lie, tell her Dustin was well so that she could be happy. He could tell her that Dustin had mourned the loss of their friendship every day and hadn’t cursed her leaving with the same bitter hatred he’d cursed Jeremy’s with. Michael sighed.

“I don’t know, we haven’t talked since graduation.”

“Oh…” Christine looked down. And Michael panicked.

“I mean, I think in his own way he did miss you. And man! Mr. Reyes was absolutely devastated when you didn’t come back in senior year,” Michael had thought that would have eased Christine’s mind, but the opposite happened.

“I have to go. Now,” Christine stood up rail straight, suddenly much more sober. She turned to him and looked him dead in the eye. “Michael, I need you to promise me, promise me you won’t let anyone named Brooke near Jake.” And with that Christine turned heel and ran away.

“What?!” Michael yelled after Christine as she retreated. He watched her turn the corner as he wondered what Chloe could have possibly told her about Brooke. He sighed as he pulled open his group chat with Jake, Brooke and Jenna wondering what just happened as he tried to write up a summary for his friends.

 

“What do you think Brooke would be studying?” Jeremy asked Chloe as their group gathered around a picnic table in the quad. It was late Wednesday Afternoon which meant that the place was packed with people waiting between afternoon and evening classes. Chloe had been dragging the group everywhere on campus since they got out of classes looking for this girl who Jeremy was starting to doubt existed. “Knowing her intended major might help find her.”

“I mean? She wanted to be a vet back in high school,” Chloe thought. “But that doesn’t really mean much if she’s taken a Squip…”

“What if she doesn’t actually go here?” Rich asked. “Cus’ like wouldn’t she be on cheer with Chris if she had one?”

“Maybe,” Christine muttered. She seemed to be the most preoccupied out of the four of them, holding the flask they’d been passing around all day without unscrewing the cap. “I asked Brooke Nelson earlier today, but she’s from Oregon. She’s not Chloe’s Brooke.”

“Her name’s Brooke Lohst, if that helps,” Chloe muttered. “Aha!” she burst and held her phone up.

“What?” Rich leaned over to see what Chloe was looking at. Jeremy walked around the table to see as well.

“I asked my mom if she had any pictures of Brooke, it took some lying that we’re talking again but I got them!” Chloe said proudly and put her phone down on the table. Jeremy started scrolling through them. He heard Rich try not to laugh when they were met with a shot of Chloe, who couldn’t have been more than ten, holding a hand full of dirt and worms while a naturally blonde girl laughed beside her.

“These are cute, but I don’t know if they’re any help,” Jeremy said and angled the phone so Chloe could see. He tried to ignore the building pit in his stomach. This Brooke girl was a childhood friend of Chloe’s, and Jeremy couldn’t really do much to keep his thoughts away from Michael.

Chloe made an embarrassing sound and scrolled away from the photo. “Here! This is from senior prom!” Chloe said and put the phone back down. Jeremy looked down at the new picture, this time he could recognize Chloe as she stood next to the same blonde girl. Chloe looked at the camera with a model’s pout, while Brooke was looking on with nearly dead eyes.

“She, looks familiar,” Christine said and Jeremy tried to understand what she meant. He looked at the girl dressed up in the picture and tried to imagine what she’d look like dressed normally. Flashes of a girl turning heel and leaving when he looked her way flooded his mind. Maybe she did go to their school.

“Yeah actually, she does,” Rich said.

“I’ve seen her,” Jeremy thought again trying to place the location of the memories he’d recovered. “In the library, a couple of times.”

“oh my god, that’s a relief, I thought I was going crazy,” Chloe sighed and relaxed into the table. “I was starting to wonder if I was the only one seeing her.”

“But that means that the girl with Jake was real, what do we do next?” Rich leaned into the table so that they didn’t need to talk quite so loudly. “Approach her and explain what we’re doing?”

“No,” Christine spoke up. “There’s a chance that her and her Squip are unaware of what ours are trying to do, we can’t risk alerting another Squip to this problem.”

“You’re on bad terms with her, right Chloe?” Jeremy asked.

“Fuck if I know,” Chloe said as she sat up. “She just stopped talking to me after graduation, probably because she got her shiny new Squip,” Chloe sighed and rested her head in her hands.

“If we could just turn them off, then everything would be fine,” Christine thought out loud. Jeremy laughed in his mind. Yeah, if they could turn their Squips off a lot of things would be so much better.

“I’ve looked into buying Mountain Dew Red before, you can’t find it anywhere on the internet,” Jeremy replied to Christine. “There’s a much higher demand for it over other vintage soda.”

“Wonder why that is,” Rich muttered to himself.

“You know,” Chloe sat up with a light in her eyes like she’d thought up something to help them. “When I was in high school, I had this plan.”

“A plan?” Jeremy asked.

“Yeah, Obviously I’d need to be drunk, and then it would just be a matter of getting Capri Sun, carbonated water and red food coloring…”

Rich looked over at their new friend like she was crazy. “If you’re talking about what I think you are, you’re gonna need a whole lot more than that. A kitchen for starters.”

“Well what’s you’re great idea then?” Chloe shot back at him.

“Would the dorms let us use their kitchens, my sorority kitchen is completely off limits right now,” Christine thought out loud.

“While we’re drunk?” Jeremy asked. “Absolutely not, besides, Jake’s friends with our RA.”

“I was thinking this would be in more of a house party setting,” Chloe said. “We’ll just show up at the next one that’s happening.”

“The next one… that’s,” Jeremy thought out loud and watched as Rich and Christine realized what he was saying, while Chloe seemed to realize she’d said something wrong.

 

“What the hell did she mean?!” Brooke was hysterical when Michael walked into the Dillinger family home Wednesday evening. He just shook his head as Brooke let her shoulders fall.

“I don’t know Brooke, I’d have to guess that Chloe spread some kind of rumor about you,” Michael said and tried to walk both of them into the kitchen. He’d told everyone about his conversation with Christine, though he’d left out the parts about Dustin, just for brevity’s sake. When he walked into the kitchen, he found Jake sitting at the table glaring down at a programing textbook and Jenna in a fight with an onion and cutting board. The onion seemed to be winning.

“How’s everyone doing?” Michael asked, Jenna hissed when the knife she was holding nicked her finger.

“Jenna’s cooking dinner,” Jake said without looking up from his textbook.

“We were waiting for you,” Jenna said, walking away from the onion after having stabbed the knife into the wood cutting board. “You’re the man of the hour. Since you’re the only one of us who’s seen any of them since Monday.”

Michael sighed as he walked over to Jenna’s onion and started to peel the outer layers to put them in the trash. “I know that, but honestly I told you everything already. I swear to god I’m about ready to break out my vintage decoder ring because what she was saying made no sense.”

Brooke let out a small giggle despite herself while Jake secured a band aid on Jenna’s finger. “You said that she claimed to want information?” Brooke said to prompt Michael to speak more.

Michael nodded. “Yeah, but then she said that she couldn’t know anything because the Squip would use it against her.”

“That’s good, that means that they understand the Squips don’t have their best interest at heart,” Jenna thought out loud as she picked up a potato from her grocery bag and started to peel it with another knife. Michael dropped what he was doing to take the knife and potato away from Jenna before she could hurt herself again. “Hey!”

“Sorry,” Michael said as he dropped the potato in the water. “Soak them first, then use a peeler.”

“But still why would they be avoiding me?” Jake asked after finally closing his notebook. “Especially if they’re moving freely right now…” Jake’s face looked so sad, and Brooke reached over and put her hand on his shoulder before the two exchanged a light hug. Michael thought back to Christine’s words, why would she be so sure that Brooke was a danger to Jake?

Jenna had found the peeler and minus dropping the potato back into the sink, she was doing well with it. Something occurred to her when she dropped the potato for the second time. “Brooke? Chloe is aware that you know about and don’t approve of Squips right?” She asked.

Brooke looked up confused, “Yeah, I ran away after high school, wait, you don’t think that…” Brooke trailed off as she finally unwound from Jake.

“Honestly, I’ve been worried about their goals in befriending Jake ever since he came to me for help,” Jenna said, finishing peeling the potato and passing it to Michael to cut. “If they wanted to activate his Squip, his having a friend who understood how horrible they were would be a major obstacle.”

“Not as major as you might think,” Michael said before he could stop himself. After all, Dustin had barely been able to stall Christine from taking one for a single night. The group looked over at him as he muttered out a small apology.

“You think they’re avoiding me because they want to give me one?” Jake looked at Jenna with horrified eyes. “No! They wouldn’t do that, we’re friends, like real friends! They’ve told me so…”

Michael cut into the potato a little too hard as he tried not to be affected by Jake’s words.

“I, that’s not what I meant- I’m sorry Jake. It’s just at the library when the Squip there was able to sense your inactivated one, I started worrying about it again,” Jenna stuttered before looking down.

“They probably think that it will be for the best,” Michael spoke. “They’re blind like that, thinking that the Squips help them.”

“Yeah, Chloe was the same way. She always thought the Squip was the only reason she was popular,” Brooke agreed.

“We, have to help them then,” Jake spoke up again. “If they’re so far gone that they think I’d be better with them I need to help them.”

“That’s what we’re gathered to do,” Jenna said with a proud smile. Michael suddenly felt his phone ding and checked out of the conversation to read the text from Connor.

_Connor: Hey I just signed for some package addressed to you. It sounds like liquid and I think it might be leaking._

Michael cursed out loud, that had to be the Mountain Dew Red. It was a good thing he’d made his mom send him multiple, if one of the bottles was leaking.

“Michael?” Brooke asked him, but he couldn’t really pay attention to her. Those damn sodas were supposed to be their trump card.

_Me: Put it in a bowl, I’ll be right there._

“Alright, okay. Jenna!” He said, she went bone straight when he called her name like a military sargent. “Put all the vegetables in a pot on the heat and let them cook, then add the water and then the curry blocks, and not any other order got it?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s what the package told me,” Jenna replied. Michael nodded and started to head out of the kitchen. “Where are you going? Michael!”

“I’m coming back!” He said before breaking into a full sprint out the front door.

The rest of the time was a blur of adrenaline until he was standing in his apartment holding the box open and relief poured over him. the bottles hadn’t been punctured in transit. His mother had tried to pack them with Ice packs and the leaking was Connor talking about was from condensation. Michael was starting to feel the adrenaline crash and wondered if he’d even make it back to Jake’s.

“Mountain Dew…?” Connor asked from over his shoulder when he saw the contents of the box. It was the closest Connor had come to acknowledging that day in the library.

“ _Red_ Mountain Dew,” Michael corrected before shoving all three bottles in his bag to get back to Jake’s. Connor rolled his eyes and called after him to take his key if he was staying somewhere else again.

He threw the bag down on the passenger seat in his car and hit the gas. Would the Squips know he had the bottles? Had they already predicted that Michael would try to use them? He figured he couldn’t waste time worrying if his move had been foreseen and just make sure that there was nothing the Squips could do to avoid it.

Michael could hear panicked pacing coming from the kitchen when he came back as well as Jenna repeatedly telling Jake not to say something.

“What’s happened?” Michael didn’t greet anyone when he walked in.

“Look who’s back,” Brooke said sarcastically. Michael pouted at her. She wouldn’t have been making fun of his momentary disappearance when she saw what he had in his bag.

“Jeremy’s group texted Jake and are coming to the party on Friday after all,” Jenna said in a monotone as Jake paced back the other way in the kitchen.

“Okay! I don’t care what you do! Just fix it! They’ve already seen me typing for the past five minutes!” Jake all but threw his phone at Jenna.

“I mean, we just say there’s no party because they didn’t help with planning,” Jenna started typing out her rejection.

“Wait no!” Jake said, grabbing his phone and deleting what Jenna typed. “We can’t afford to scare them into silence again!” Jenna groaned.

“They’ve been doing this for the past ten minutes,” Brooke explained to Michael with a bored expression. “Jake, I’m in Jenna’s camp. They’re basically asking to be alone with just you, them and Chloe. That’s way too risky.”

Michael sighed and signaled Jake to put the phone down on the table. “Before you make any decision, you’re going to want to see what I have.”

“What do you have that you think is so important we’d risk leaving Jake alone with four Squipped people?” Jenna asked holding nothing back.

“I’ll have you know, in middle school and high school my favorite hobby was collecting vintage soda,” Michael said and that caught everyone’s attention. “So I had a connection send me this,” He pulled one of the bottles out of his bag and placed it on the table.

“Holy shit,” Jake muttered.

“You’re kidding right?” Brooke said looking at the bottle.

“Nope,” Michael hummed and pulled the other two out as well. “They’re all verified unsealed, likely from the last batch ever produced if the serial code on the case is to be believed.”

“It’s real, I haven’t seen these since mine turned off,” Jenna carefully picked up one of the bottles and tried to read the faded label.

“I know you said that it’s not a full shut down. But I just thought, there’s no reason to leave them suffering when I knew how to get the ‘cure’ to their ‘demonic possession’,” Michael quoted what Jenna had said to him when they first met. “And once they’re more aware of their situation they might even try to help find the way to shut off the Squips for good.”

Michael took a deep breath and looked over the faces of his three friends. “So I think that we should agree to meet with them. There’s still a day between now and Friday, we can do our best to invite enough people that we’ll have a crowd to hide in, that way we don’t need to leave them alone with Jake.”

“I guess, yeah, that’s the best course of action,” Jenna said, still entranced by the 90’s brand art. Jake nodded before picking up his phone again and texting Jeremy’s group that the party was still happening.

 

Thursday had started about as well as any day this week had for Jeremy. There was a horrible pain in his head from a hangover and a miniature fight with his Squip before he could down enough vodka to shut it off. Rich had made a comment about their alcohol supply getting low when they hid the second empty bottle this week in Jeremy’s school bag. Jeremy threw the bottle out in a public trashcan on the campus so it couldn’t be tracked back to them and stumbled into his class. Christine had told him she’d already been throw out of one of her classes for being drunk, Jeremy was starting to wonder how long they could keep this up as his teacher sent a nasty glare his way.

It started going differently when Chloe and Christine intercepted them before they got to the quad. Chloe said that she had a plan for the day and not to worry about leaving Jake alone, before marching toward the campus entrance. The three friends all looked around in confusion before following after her.

Currently Jeremy was walking behind Chloe down the street with Rich and Christine at his sides. They’d been walking for at least 20 minutes at this point, Jeremy had to wonder what Chloe’s plan was.

“Alright what are we doing here then?” Rich asked Chloe who whipped her head around with a wide smile.

Chloe laughed as she dragged the group to a specific store. “We’re going on a shopping spree!”

“A Goodwill?” Jeremy asked.

“A store the Squips would never let us in!” Chloe smiled and at that the group loosened up. “I do this pretty regularly, and I think I’ll be able to get what we need in here! Then we can try and find some clothes that the Squips wouldn’t want us wearing.”

“That actually sounds like fun!” Christine laughed and ran off to dig around on the racks. Rich followed soon after her and started pulling random articles off the racks to see if she’d like them.

“Aren’t you going to join your friends?” Chloe asked to Jeremy as they both hung back at the entrance, Jeremy did his best to ignore the tired looking cashier glaring at them.

“Nah, Chris and Rich both get way too high energy with this kind of thing,” Jeremy said and gestured as Christine spun around while holding a full length skirt to her waist. “Don’t let me hold you back though, you’re our friend too Chloe.”

She looked at him with a blank expression.

“I mean! Uh, only if you w-want to be!” Jeremy stuttered out and suddenly cursed himself.

Chloe only laughed in reply, “Do you naturally have a stutter?” She asked with a playful smile as Jeremy rubbed the back of his neck.

“Even before the Squip, I was trying to get rid of it,” Jeremy admitted. He followed her to where there were a few types of food. She managed to find a 30 pack of Capri Sun and some gel food coloring. She smiled before dropping the food coloring in a basket and turning back to Jeremy.

“Hey so, kind of a personal question but,” Chloe leaned in. “What does your Squip look like?”

“Keanu Reeves,” Jeremy replied without so much as a beat of hesitation. He’d never thought of it as something to be embarrassed by. Though he knew Rich was of a different mind, he never told Christine or Jeremy what his looked like despite their constant prodding.

“Uh, who’s that?” Chloe asked.

“The Matrix?” Jeremy raised an eyebrow at her and she made a small ‘oh’, Jeremy didn’t know how to help her if that hadn’t brought up the right image in her head. “What about you?”

“… Roy Mustang,” Chloe muttered while her head was pointed away from Jeremy, like she didn’t want to be admitting it.

It was Jeremy’s turn to be confused. He sat there processing the statement. “Wait… Like the anime character?” He finally asked. Chloe grumbled and gave him a playful shove, which didn’t discourage Jeremy in the slightest. “Does it like, have subtitles?” Jeremy heaved out a laugh.

“Oh my god!” Chloe laughed at the suggestion, so Jeremy knew he hadn’t crossed a line with his teasing, yet. “No, it just, looks like an anime boy…” Jeremy tried and failed to keep a giggle fit down at the statement. “You know what? Never mind!”

“Yo! Tallass! Chloe! Get over here!” Rich yelled from a few isles over and the two shared one last laugh together before joining their friends.

Turned out, Rich had found a striped shirt and cardigan combo that looked like what Jeremy always wore in high school and Christine had decided that Chloe would look lovely in pink overalls. The group laughed as they wasted their afternoon trying on the silliest outfits they could manage.

Soon they were walking away from the shop with new outfits the Squips wouldn’t like and the makings of a drink the Squips definitely wouldn’t approve of. Christine hummed as she walked beside Chloe. Jeremy and Rich stayed in the back of the group as they began the trek back to the campus.

Jeremy listened to Christine explain the plot of Macbeth to Chloe for most of the walk back. He thought that it had been weird for rich to be as quiet as he had, but for most of the walk he’d just written it off as the boy being tired after doing something they didn’t normally do.

After they climbed the stairs in the boys dorm did it really become apparent to Jeremy that there was something deeply wrong with his friend.

“Hey Rich?” Jeremy asked and put his hand on Rich’s shoulder. Chloe and Christine both turned around to see what was happening. “Everything okay? We can call it a night early if you want?”

There was an agonizing pause where Rich didn’t reply or even react to being touched. Jeremy looked to Chloe and Christine for help but neither of them seemed to understand either.

“It’s pointless you know?” Rich finally spoke.

“What is?” Christine asked as she walked to her friends though Chloe grabbed her before she could get close.

“This rebellion,” Rich’s mouth moved but now Jeremy knew that it wasn’t his friend speaking. He assumed that made sense, he was sure that his Squip would be waking up soon as well.

“And what does Rich have to say on that matter?” Jeremy asked carefully.

“Don’t you get it dude? I am me right now!” Rich yelled and yanked his arm away from Jeremy. Chloe signaled for him to stay quiet while trying to wave off the few boys hanging around the hall. “We can’t get rid of the Squips! We’ve all lived with them for so long, to lose them would kill us!”

“Just cogs in their machine…” Christine muttered and cast her eyes to the floor.

“Did your Squip tell you that?” Jeremy asked as he approached Rich again.

“Of course it did!”

“Then we don’t know if it’s telling the truth…” Jeremy tried to comfort. Rich pulled away again.

“We don’t know if they aren’t either though! The Squips are normally reliable about what’s going to be life and death!” Rich yelled back. Jeremy saw the RA that had been with Michael and Jake the other day heading toward the fight, but he and Rich were both too wound up to stop. Jeremy took a mental note to not say anything too specific.

“Rich! Even if that’s the case! You aren’t just going to let them ruin Jake, are you?” Jeremy asked and all at once realized his mistake. Rich’s face went hard at the mention of his crush.

Jeremy took a step back only to remember that they’d just finished climbing up a flight of stairs. And suddenly Jeremy’s vision was going in slow motion and worst of all, he couldn’t hear anything.

Rich’s eyes were glowing in the way that meant his Squip was standing in front of him. The next thing Jeremy knew Rich was lunging at him.

He could see Christine, her mouth was moving and she seemed distressed.

Chloe and the RA were both trying to catch up to Rich before what was about to happen, but clearly none of them had reacted fast enough.

The next thing Jeremy remembered, he was on the ground at the bottom of the stairs and now he couldn’t feel much either. The last thing he saw before passing out was the image of the Squip standing over him as his arm twisted in the wrong way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Oh, resistance, is useless, just two kids stupid and fearless"
> 
> Chloe watches anime and you can't change my mind.


	7. “The curtains are drawn, to open old wounds. It’s our finale, come not a moment too soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> – FADE by Circus-P
> 
> This chapter is... also almost 7,000 words. Have fun.

 Michael sighed and lifted the window of Jake’s house open as Jenna and Brooke scolded Jake about not wanting to take his paintings down. Michael supposed that he should have been helping, but they told everyone that the party would start at 7 and he _really_ didn’t want to be sober when the strangers started showing up. He took the matchbox that Jake had given him and lit the blunt he’d rolled before coming over.

He watched the smoke retreat and disperse into the evening sky and felt the weight of a certain flask sitting in his jacket pocket. That morning Jenna had opened one of the bottles of Mountain Dew Red and poured it off into four flasks telling everyone to keep them on their persons. It had been pointless in the end, they hadn’t so much as seen any of their ‘targets’ at the campus that day.

Honestly, Michael was just worried that the Squips figured out what they were doing and that they weren’t going to show up at the party and everything would be for naught. Not that he was going to voice that while everyone was so high strung, he’d bring it up after an hour if they didn’t show.

“Michael!” Brooke yelled from across the living room and started storming over like he was an elementary schooler in trouble. “We’re going to need everyone at 100 percent tonight! You can’t do that!” She said and gestured to his blunt. Michael took a deep breath.

“Sorry but, this here,” He wiggled the blunt in his fingers and dropped some ash on the windowsill. Brooke just glared at him. “Is a pre req for my being in a room of more than five people.”

“Do you go to your classes high?” Brooke deadpanned.

“No, but the last time I went to a house party my best friend called me a loser and said to get out of his life,” He felt a little bad using what happened with Jeremy to get Brooke off his back, but at the same time, there was a euphoria in speaking about that night with someone. Dustin had never wanted to talk about that party, having his own trauma from that night.

“Oh, I’m sorry, but even still…” Brooke looked down uncomfortable.

“Don’t worry about it, this isn’t enough to get me high, just buzzed enough to handle the night,” He tried to comfort her. He wasn’t sure if she’d been satisfied with the answer or had just given up fighting him on it. 

“At the least can you go outside with it?” Jenna grumbled after walking back into the room. “It smells terrible.”

“No no Jenna!” Jake laughed. “It smells like a party!”

Michael laughed before listening to his friend and heading out to the porch. He carefully sat down on the swing that looked like no one had used it since Jake was a child. It creaked and Michael almost dropped the still lit blunt. After a few more breaths the blunt was all used and Michael was feeling sufficiently lighter. No amount of drugs would have stopped the panic he saw when he noticed a person approaching though.

“Hey, is this Jake Dilligener’s place?” A tall blonde girl that Michael immediately knew was Chloe walked up and asked. She had a bit of a standoffish expression, but it melted into one of embarrassment and confusion when he stared too long. She had a cardboard pack of Capri Sun under one arm and held a six pack of beer in the other hand. “Uh, I guess I just assumed, because of…” She gestured to the ashy remnants of his blunt.

“I. Don’t know, let me check,” Michael said and darted for the door slamming it in Chloe’s face before she could see Brooke in the living room. “Chloe’s here, you need to hide.”

Brooke took a second to process what Michael had said before nodding and running off to the second floor.

“It’s early! Squips are supposed to make them show up late,” Jenna hissed the statement and Michael had to infer her question.

“It’s only her, the others aren’t there,” He said. Jake dropped the bag of chips he’d been trying to open and walked over to the door.

“Act natural,” He said to both of them before they tried to calm down. “Hey! Welcome! Welcome! Don’t mind Michael, he’s new to the whole party scene!” Jake said and led Chloe in with the fakest smile Michael had ever seen on him.

Chloe laughed at the statement. “No need to worry, I could tell! I think he’s very cute!”

“He’s gay,” Jenna said with venom. Michael snorted. Jenna clearly wasn’t used to acting in front of Squipped people.

“Wow Jenna! Way to out me,” He laughed and gently slapped her shoulder. And then she seemed to loosen up into the role of party goers.

“You have a patch on your school bag that literally says ‘I’m gay’,” Jenna corrected him.

“Nah, that’s just cause I’m an ally,” Michael deflected. Chloe laughed at their banter.

“Right well, I’m Chloe Valentine,” she said and put the beer down to hold out her hand to Jake. “I was pen pals with Christine for a while and we’ve been hanging out with Jeremy and Rich! I’ve been so excited to meet you Jake!”

“Pleasure’s mine, it’s always great to make more friends,” Jake said without missing a beat.

“And that one’s Michael?” Chloe asked and looked over to Michael. “Michael Mell yeah?”

Michael couldn’t stand the chill that went up his spine at that but all the same he recovered. “No, Jackson.” He deadpanned.

Chloe didn’t seem fazed. “Jeremy talks about you, says you’re really smart with computers!”

“Well that hasn’t been true since freshmen year of high school,” Michael sighed. “Guess I’ll just have to correct him when he shows his face later.”

“Oh, Jeremy’s not coming, I think. After yesterday, he and Christine are a bit preoccupied with each other,” Chloe made an over dramatic thinking gesture as her brow furrowed. The closest Michael thought they’d gotten to seeing Chloe’s true face. As Michael thought that Brooke would have an easier time getting straight answers out of her, he realized exactly why they’d sent Jeremy to talk to him that first day.

“What happened yesterday?” Jenna dropped all pretenses of being an uninvolved party goer. Chloe ignored her.

“Rich won’t be here either I’m afraid. He’s tied up at the moment,” Chloe laughed as the doorbell rang again and Jake’s friends from the football team let themselves in.

 

The pain when Jeremy woke up wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d thought it might have been given the blurry memories that flooded back, but it was still present. There was a steady beeping that Jeremy timed his breaths to, it helped calm him down as he opened his eyes. And exactly who he feared was sitting in the visitor’s chair, making a show of reading a projection of a book that actually sat on the end table beside it.

 _“You’re up,”_ The Squip dropped its projected book where the real one was as it faded. Jeremy tried to keep his breath in time with the beeping again but very quickly realized the beeping was his heart rate and that it was going far too fast for that anymore.

 _“You’re still here,”_ Jeremy thought bitterly. That’s right, last night he’d been taken to the hospital after he fell down the stairs.

 _“Rich pushed you,”_ The Squip corrected with an over dramatic sigh. Jeremy shrugged it off, there had been something about wanting to check for a concussion.

 _“Because you fell, Because Rich pushed you,”_ The Squip sighed like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Jeremy tried to keep thinking about why he was still here as he shifted.

But all at once a pain shot up his right arm.

 _“Jeremy, Jeremy,”_ The Squip’s avatar stood up and walked over to the hospital bed Jeremy was on. Jeremy tried to shift away, but a pain shot through his right arm as he tried to do so. _“It took you until now to notice the cast? Well I suppose that makes sense given your less than perfect perception as of late.”_

And then all at once it clicked about why Jeremy was still here.

 _“At least I’m not the one who forgot getting shocked spikes my heart rate.”_ That’s right, he’d been plugged into the heart monitor to check for a concussion, but he’d still managed to bait the Squip into shocking him, twice. Turns out, hospitals tend to panic when your heart rate spikes like you’ve been shocked.

 _“Watch your sass,”_ The Squip looked displeased as Jeremy laughed to himself a little.

 _“Or what? You’ll shock me again?”_ Jeremy asked and gave a giant smirk when the Squip had to back down. Really, being stuck in the hospital was far preferable to being a danger to Jake, or Chloe’s plan.

“Oh good you’re up now,” A female voice walked into the room and Jeremy was just glad to have a distraction from the Squip. It was a nurse who was clearly watching Jeremy’s heart rate even out again. “We’re sorry that we had to keep you over night, but it does seem that your heart is healthy. We’re going to be replacing the monitor we’d been using, too.”

 _“What did you do?”_ Jeremy snapped at the Squip in his head, messing with Jeremy’s medical records was a new low, even for the Squips. Not to mention the danger that it put Jeremy in should there actually have been something wrong in his heart rate readings. 

_“Oh, don’t give me that, I only changed your readings. If anything is truly wrong with your heart, I’ll be able to sense it before any of their dinky machines anyway,”_ The Squip said proudly as Jeremy absently handed the nurse his insurance card in return for his clothes he’d worn to the hospital.

“So, it does look like you have a minor concussion, I’m going to have to request that you do not drink or operate heavy machinery for at least a week,” The nurse said as Jeremy walked to the bathroom to change. That was not good for him. though he could feel the Squip glaring at him smugly.

Eventually Jeremy was walking to the hospital lobby, and the situation he was in started to sink in. He couldn’t drink, he couldn’t shut the Squip off. The hospital had given the Squip the perfect excuse to stop Jeremy from even trying. Jeremy wondered how else he could stop the Squip from engaging with Jake.

 _“For the love of all things good Jeremy, you act as if our interacting with Jake is a death sentence for the boy,”_ The Squip scolded Jeremy as it walked in lock step with him, doing a twirl to avoid a patient that passed Jeremy in the space it was occupying. _“Let me ask you this: Do you even have an extra Squip pill lying around?”_

No, Jeremy supposed that they didn’t, but still, _“You’re trying to trick me into something.”_

 _“Not at all!”_ It threw its arms up at the accusation. _“Well I suppose I am trying to trick you into talking to your friend while we attempt to buy another…”_ Jeremy glared at it openly, not caring who saw him. _“What I am trying to say is, you’re all burning the last free time you have with Jake, under your own self enforced rules.”_

 _“I’m not falling for that,”_ Jeremy snapped and turned to head out the front doors. Before he could open them though.

“JEREMY!” A voice he knew all too well approached him, he turned around just in time to make sure that Christine tackled his side that didn’t have a broken arm.

“Chris!” Jeremy laughed when he recovered. “I didn’t expect you here!”

“What? I can’t wait for my boyfriend to get out of the hospital?” Christine laughed and suddenly Jeremy was aware of what she was trying to do. She was clearly his answer to the problem of what to do with himself since the Squip wasn’t going to allow itself to be turned off any time soon. “Anyway! I want to go on a date! Like to the movies or arcade or something!”

“Miss Canigula, you cannot behave like this,” The Squip spoke through Jeremy and the boy panicked before pulling Christine into a hug and glaring at all the people looking at their little show.

 _“You can’t do that while people are looking!”_ Jeremy snapped in his head and waited for the Squip to respond, though he knew it wouldn’t. It always went off to sulk when it made mistakes, leaving Jeremy to clean them up.

“So! Where do you want to go?” Jeremy asked Christine in a panic. This was probably the best either of them could do, keeping his Squip trapped in social pressure of appearing to be a happy couple. Jeremy laughed a little in his head and wondered if the Squip regretted not letting them break up in senior year yet.

He grabbed Christine’s hand a little tighter as a shock shot through his body with no warning, but Christine squeezed back just as tight.

 

The date Christine had planned had kept them in public for most of the day, perfect in Jeremy’s eyes. It was as they were leaving the movie theater that Christine and Jeremy both decided that they wanted to play in the attached arcade. Jeremy ignored the Squip commenting that they were acting like they were 13.

“Let’s play DDR!” Christine spoke a little louder than she needed to so Jeremy could hear her over the music. He laughed at that and followed her to the old machine. The paint had peeled from the bars in places where people were likely to touch them, and the whole design seemed to be from the early 2000’s.

 _“You’re spending a lot of time examining a machine, when you should be worried about your friends,”_ the Squip commented. Jeremy internally rolled his eyes. he knew exactly what the Squip wanted so he’d give it exactly what it didn’t want.

“Hey, Rich is alright, right?” Jeremy asked as Christine scrolled through the bubblegum pop song options the machine had. Definitely from the early 2000’s.

She turned around and looked him over. “He’s fine, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Of course,” Jeremy replied with a smile as Christine chose her song. She giggled as the first steps flew by the screen, she missed all but one of them.

Jeremy saw the Squip roll its eyes from the corner before Jeremy felt his leg step onto the machine and get the three steps on the back key. Christine turned and glared at him.

“I got this!” She said with a pout.

“Forward, right, right,” The Squip replied and Christine whipped around missing the forward step but getting the two right ones.

“As comforting as it is to know that Richard is safe, I’d meant for Jeremy to ask about Jake,” The Squip replied as he got the back step for Christine, who got the next three.

“What about Jake?” Christine feigned ignorance. She hit two more steps and missed another one. 

“You know how upset he is since you haven’t been talking to him, surely you can’t be planning on missing his party? After you all so cleverly told him you’d be there,” The Squip kept going despite Jeremy’s internal pleas to stop when Christine went silent. “Can you really claim to love him?”

Christine whipped around with tears in her eyes. “I’m doing this out of love!” Christine screamed at the Squip. The game had ended and was resting on their score, Jeremy could feel the two ten-year-olds that had been playing air hockey looking at them. For a second, it felt like that old arcade was frozen in suffocating silence.

Jeremy felt the ability to breathe return only as the concession stand outside the arcade started to make a fresh batch of popcorn. The popping was irregular enough that he could use it as a distraction.

“Of course you are, I know that you love him. It’s just trying to get under your skin,” Jeremy tried to comfort Christine as he helped her down off the DDR machine. “We should head out now.”

“Jeremy,” Christine said in a low voice. “I need to talk to it.”

 _“Why?”_ Jeremy almost spoke, but instead his voice spoke, “Making deals with devils never ends well for the person offering, miss Canigula.”

 _“Oh good you acknowledge what you are,”_ Jeremy snarked.

“I’ll stop drinking for the night and we’ll go to Jake’s party,” Christine said deadpan. Jeremy would have contorted his face in panic if he’d had control.

“People normally have a clause for something they want in these kinds of deals, miss Canigula,”

“Oh my god, stop calling me that! The catch is that you have to let Jeremy drink when we get to the party!” Christine finished.

“What good will that do?!” Jeremy finally fought control of his mouth back from the Squip.

“Jeremy,” Christine turned to face him, overturning a bit and nearly falling over. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” Jeremy said cutting himself off before he could say, _“I just don’t understand why you think I can do anything to save us.”_

 _“There’s nothing to understand, you’re cornered animals, trying whatever to get out,”_ The Squip sneered in his ear.

“Then trust me and agree to this,” Christine said calmly as she grabbed Jeremy’s hands.

 _“Alright, what’s your say on the matter?”_ Jeremy asked his Squip, who he could see shaking it’s head in the corner.

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Miss Canigula,” It finally spoke.

 

Which was how Jeremy found himself standing in front of his friend’s family home at 7:30. Jeremy took a deep breath. He really had no idea why Christine had decided that they absolutely needed to be here after having avoiding Jake for as long as they had.

 _“Truly confusing, I agree,”_ The Squip spoke. _“It feels as though you are throwing out all the progress you thought you were making.”_

 _“Oh shut up! Isn’t this what you wanted?”_ Jeremy snapped. _“I’m not going to give up on protecting Jake just because of this!”_

_“Oh no, of course not. You’ve put all your hopes on Chloe’s sixth grade science experiment. Do I really need to tell the four of you that it’s never going to work?”_

Jeremy felt someone slam their shoulder into his and he turned to see Christine down the last of a beer can she had.

“Alright, our agreement starts now,” She slurred.

“That feels a little like cheating Miss Canigula,” The Squip complained.

“You’ve got the time before Jeremy gets drunk no matter what, so I get the time it takes for RBG to turn on~” Christine hummed as she skipped up the steps to Jake’s house.

Jeremy took a deep breath of the smoky air of the party as they entered. He’d always loved the atmosphere of parties, from the music pounding through his chest making him feel like one part of a bigger whole to the dim lights and sea of faces that gave everyone an air of anonymity, it always helped him relax.

Christine greeted someone from the cheer team with a bounce in her step. She’d ended up walking backwards to keep her eye on Jeremy, which led to her slamming into a random girl.

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” Christine said and rushed to help the girl up.

“No, no I wasn’t watching where I was go…ing,” the girl trailed off after she looked up from taking Christine’s hand. There was a moment where the three people stood in the middle of the crowd staring at each other with startled faces.

The girl Christine had pulled off the floor was Brooke Lohst. Before Jeremy or Christine could think of something to say she’d already bolted, stumbling over the leather couch.

“What was that?!” Christine yelled so Jeremy would hear her.

 _“Yeah, what was that? Could you tell if she had a Squip?”_ Jeremy asked in his head, it took looking around but eventually he found his Squip’s avatar standing at the edge of the room pretending not to be involved.

So it was sulking.

 _“Did you manage to synch with that Brooke girl’s Squip?”_ Jeremy said in his head after he’d stormed over to his Squip’s avatar.

 _“Oh sorry did you need me for something? I thought I made a deal with your fake girlfriend,”_ It spoke.

Jeremy made an annoyed sound before turning to the refreshment table and grabbed the first can he’d seen. It was only as he was holding it, did he realize that he couldn’t open it with one hand. He shoved it at Christine who looked at him before opening the can and drinking it herself.

“Chris,” Jeremy whined. She laughed and showed him that he’d picked up a can of soda in the first place.

There went his master plan to get drunk. 

“Jeremy! Christine!” A voice yelled for the two of them and they turned to see Jake running to them. “Oh my god! Chloe said that you weren’t able to make- Holy shit! Your arm!”

“Like it? It’s a battle scar!” Jeremy joked. Christine snorted.

He was sure that Christine was teasing him for calling a cast a scar but all of a sudden he couldn’t hear anything. The sound of the world flooded away and the room was lit up as if it was midday. All the Squip’s doing obviously.

 _“I’m going to have to break the contract I made with Christine if you want to get her and yourself out of this party safe and well, Jeremy.”_ It spoke into his ear.

 _“What the hell are you talking about?”_ Jeremy tried to fight it, but instead of replying the Squip pointed upward and Jeremy looked up to see Brooke on the second story balcony, watching them with a flask in hand. She seemed to react to Jeremy looking at her, but it was all slow motion.

 _“They’re scheming something. Jake has the same flask in his left coat pocket,”_ It said, and Jeremy felt like that was the last straw.

 _“Jake would_ never _try and hurt anyone! Let alone us, we’re his friends!”_ Jeremy tried to yell.

_“Maybe not as himself, but wasn’t the whole point of this that you were worried something, someone, would corrupt him? What makes you think Brooke has a Squip Jeremy? What makes you think we’re the worst of our kind? We want the best for our users, not all knockoffs will be as soft hearted.”_

_“Are you saying that Jake’s been-?”_ Jeremy asked, but then all at once he was pulled from the suffocating silence and bright lights that the Squip used to keep his attention.

“Jeremy!” the voice that pulled him back down to reality was now grabbing at his shoulder. Jeremy turned around to be faced with Michael, which made no sense to Jeremy, Michael hated parties. He always had. “You already that out of it man?” Michael laughed.

“No- I’m,” Jeremy tried to speak but stopped when he saw Michael grab for something in his coat and pulled out the same old flask that Brooke had. He took a quick drink out of the flask and offered it out to Jeremy.

“Want some?” He asked with an easy smile that reminded Jeremy of when they were younger. That smile had been the one good thing in his life during middle school. He almost reached for the drink just because of that.

 _“You realize how much easier it would be to corrupt someone who hated us? To just tell him that they weren’t the same as the Squips, without mentioning how much worse they were?”_ The Squip asked. Jeremy froze again. _“Honestly, this is my fault. I should have pushed harder to try and convert him, but it looks like it’s too late now.”_

Jeremy took a full step back and reached out for Christine’s hand. “Huh? Jeremy?” And with that the two of them bolted into the game room, it was further into the house so Brooke couldn’t see them from the second floor and also put a door between them and the danger.

“We were wrong Chris, we messed up bad,” He hastily tried to explain the situation to her.

“What were we wrong about?” She asked and tried to get him to even his breathing out.

“About Brooke having a Squip, about Michael being safe, and we messed up protecting Jake,” He said. Christine looked at him with horrified eyes.

“Jeremy, your Squip is trying to freak you out,” Christine said calmly.

“Jake, Brooke and Michael all have matching flasks, it says that there’s something worse than Squips in them,” Jeremy explained. Christine sighed and signaled Jeremy to move as she opened the door to the game room.

Then she closed it immediately and turned to Jeremy. “I don’t trust the Squips, but it was right about them all having matching flasks, it looked like they were taking stock of whatever is in them.”

“We need to find Chloe, like right now,” Jeremy took a deep breath, and tried to calm down. As he took deep breaths Christine moved across the room to grab a chair before jamming it under the nob.

“they’re coming this way, help me open the window,” Christine muttered and Jeremy saw a glitter in her eyes that could only mean one thing.

“Your Squip’s back already?” He asked.

“You startled the last of the alcohol out of my system I guess, it’s fine,” Christine said as she heaved the heavy window frame up and started to fight with the window screen. “We can get out the window and back in through the kitchen backdoor.”

“Jeremy?! Christine?!” Jake’s voice came from the other side of the door, they didn’t have much time before Jake tried to open it and find that they’d jammed it, but all the same, Christine’s Squip managed to get the window screen off.

They’d both jumped out the window as they heard Jake start to slam on the door. Jeremy turned to close the window before Christine grabbed him and ran him around the side of the house to enter through the back door into the kitchen.

The lights in the kitchen were turned on all the way so it was brighter than the rest of the house and the two of them had little trouble finding Chloe in the much smaller crowd.

“Will you chill, it’s fine,” Chloe was arguing with a girl trying to grab a pot away from her.

“If you refuse to explain what you’re doing, I’m going to have to ask you to stop!” The girl yelled and tried to make another grab for the pot.

 _“That girl is with them,”_ The Squip spoke and Jeremy gulped. Of course she was. _“You’ll need to work fast or she’ll go tell the rest of the group where you all are. My recommended course of action would be to just leave whatever atrocity is sitting in that pot and go.”_

 _“Of course it is,”_ Jeremy snarked in his head. He took a breath to call out to Chloe and the girl bothering her but Christine stopped him.

“Let’s just watch, Chloe can handle herself,” She whispered to him.

“Oh why do you care?! I promise it won’t hurt the pan,” Chloe complained. The girl she was arguing with didn’t seem convinced.

“It’s not about,” Then she stopped talking and grabbed Chloe’s hand before she could react dragging the girl to the hall closet. Jeremy was running after them before he knew what he was doing, only looking back long enough to check that Christine had taken over stirring the soda syrup on the stove.

 _“The Bio-hazard you mean?”_ The Squip asked, Jeremy didn’t care.

“Chloe!” He called and reached to try and open the closet door. It was locked and someone slammed back on the door, causing him to panic. He really couldn’t think of what two girls could be doing in a closet, at a party and he was nervous- Suddenly a blob of blonde hair he vaguely recognized as Brooke threw itself in front of him.

She threw the door open and found the girl and Chloe in the process of making out and Jeremy was so thoroughly embarrassed he almost wanted to run away and leave Chloe to fend off the two possessed girls herself.

“Chloe! Why do you always! _Always_ do this to me?!” Brooke yelled. Chloe was barely recovering, still covering her mouth and blushing cheeks.

“Wha- It’s not like that! She started it this time!” Chloe fought back, not even greeting her old friend.

“Brooke! I have this under control!” The girl tried to calm Brooke down, but she wasn’t having any of it.

“Oh sure it’s her fault! It’s always the ones I like isn’t it?!” Brooke yelled again and then Chloe got up off her feet.

“Oh calm your tits! We haven’t talked for years! And I didn’t even want to kiss her!” Chloe yelled back.

“…What?” The girl looked between the two of them confused. Then Brooke seemed to become aware that she’d just yelled that she liked the other girl at the top of her lungs.

“Hey! What the hell was that?!” Michael’s voice cut through the crowd, and honestly, now even the random party goers were starting to watch the whole scene. Jeremy took a few seconds to realize that Michael wasn’t yelling at the girls who had caused the scene but at him, who had been pressed up against the wall while Chloe and Brooke had their shouting match.

“I-” Jeremy really wasn’t sure what was going on anymore, but he seemed to have the same thought as Chloe that they couldn’t let the group into the kitchen. The two of them moved shoulder to shoulder to block the hallway.

“Running away like that is incredibly rude you know! Also what the hell did you do to the door? We can’t get it open at all!” Michael was ranting at him. Jeremy could feel Chloe’s inquisitive eyes on him, he just hoped they’d get through the night in relatively the same shape so they could explain what’s happened to each other.

Before Jeremy could form a sentence to reply, or more realistically, before the Squip could take over his mouth and make the situation worse someone in the crowd started chanting, and Jeremy realized all at once, their fate was sealed.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” The guys from the various sports teams Jake was on started chanting before anyone who was still sober could stop them.

Michael listened to the chants for a few seconds while dread built up in Jeremy’s stomach. “You know what? Yeah! 1v1 me IRL. Bitch,” Michael said and shoved Jeremy to walk past him into the kitchen.

 _“Please no… There are so many other ways to defend my masculinity, I promise,”_ Jeremy begged his Squip before it had even said anything. Jeremy always hated party fights, even if he’d only been in two since he’d taken the Squip, they always left him messed up for months after they happened.

 _“Are you really so freaked out?”_ The Squip asked. _“If there is even one person in the world you could win a fist fight against, it would be Michael.”_

 _“I only have one arm!”_ Jeremy snapped in his head but his feet were not listening to him.

“Fine! I can take you with one arm! You’ll see!” Jeremy felt himself yelling as the drunk party goers around him cheered and whistled.

Outside in Jake’s backyard had never been one of Jeremy’s favorite places, the sounds from the party far too muffled and distant to save him from the suffocation that came with sitting in the cold silence. All too often he’d only be outside to comfort someone who’d been broken up with or had some other family disaster worth crying over and he would just sit there wishing that they’d at least go back into the house before he got frostbite.

“You aren’t ready for this you know,” Michael teased and tried to do what Jeremy assumed was some kind of jujitsu move he’d seen in a movie. It didn’t end well.

Jeremy felt his shoulders drop, “Michael are you drunk right now?” He asked.

“NO!” Michael yelled at the same time a voice behind Jeremy called, “And high!”

Jeremy turned around to see the girl who’d been making out with Chloe in the closet had followed them outside, Chloe and Brooke not too far behind her.

“Shut it Jenna!” Michael yelled back at the group of girls, and Jeremy turned his attention back to the fight he didn’t want to be in. Michael started running at him and Jeremy didn’t even need the Squip’s help side stepping the attack. He did however feel his good hand ball into a fist and his stance widen as the Squip prepared to counterattack.

“Michael, we don’t need to do this…” Jeremy tried to reason.

“Back in high school, you always thought I was jealous, but I never was,” Michael replied and turned back to Jeremy. “All I _ever_ wanted was for you to finally ask Christine out! The normal way!” He’d ran at Jeremy again and this time the Squip was the one who made Jeremy step back and shove Michael’s shoulders, causing both boys to lose their footing for a second. “All I ever wanted was for the three of us to brave the school together!”

Jeremy growled at the statement as he tried to lunge at Michael to land another hit. There was a buzzing in the back of his head that was drowning out everything except the fight and Jeremy’s own anger.

“Well all _I_ ever wanted was to get the player one controller once in a while!” Jeremy yelled, honestly surprised that this anger he’d thought himself over already was boiling up again. “But you never wanted to release any control! Just cus’ I wasn’t happy with our lot in life!” His fist finally contacted with Michael’s stomach and the other boy fell on the ground winded.

“I was never happy with it either!” Michael wheezed out. “I just knew that it’d never improve until we were away from that town!”

Michael flinched when Jeremy dropped down on the ground to pin him in place. Jeremy vaguely tried to protest to the Squip that the fight was over since Michael was knocked prone, but it was having none of it. _“If Michael were just the same nobody he was in high school than this much would be fine, but we need to show these knock offs who’s superior.”_

Jeremy was tired, balancing on one arm was hard enough when there wasn’t someone trying to get out of your hold under you, and he could feel tears from the conversation welling in his eyes, something he’d be punished for later, not to mention he was sure he looked possessed from the way his eyes were glowing in the light of the waning moon.

“Well are you happy now?!” Jeremy finally shouted, unsure of what purpose it would serve, unsure of why the Squip hadn’t stopped him.

Michael squeezed his eyes closed as he finally yelled out, “No! Because I miss you!”

Then all at once Jeremy felt a searing pain erupting from his growing and he fell over off Michael, onto his casted arm, which sent a second wave of pain through his body. He was unsure of anything that was happening around him, the pain having drowned out any sense of hearing and caused his eyes to Squeeze shut.

He thought for a second, that he could feel Michael’s weight on top of him, pinning his good arm to the grass. He thought he could hear Michael calling out for Brooke, and then, then it was clear what was going to happen to him.

 _“You are not giving up now Jeremy, we’ve come too far,”_ The Squip projected itself behind Jeremy’s eyelids, so it was standing in a sea of black, looking down at Jeremy like he was a child who had spent all of lunch crying over a scraped knee. _“Because you are. I’ve already blocked the pain, you just need to react now.”_

Jeremy opened his eyes to observe the world that was upside down around him, at first all he saw was Jenna pinning Chloe to the ground herself, there was a moment where they looked at each other and synched the same worry, _“Where is Christine?”_

Jeremy didn’t have time to think about that further as Brooke dropped to her knees right above his head. He couldn’t hear her over the ringing in his ears, but he swore he saw her mouth a ‘sorry’ before her finger forcefully connected with his eye that he’d only closed just in time. He cried out at the pain again but that was his mistake.

He felt the liquid from her flask pouring into his mouth. It tasted, almost like soda, old, flat, fruit punch soda. He tried to spit it out but only ended up swallowing in the struggle.

 _“You! You dumb child!”_ The Squip was yelling at him, exploding the world in his vision into a million colors. Jeremy couldn’t see anything, he couldn’t even feel, smell or _hear_ anything either. The bright explosions of colors fell away, just for a second, and Jeremy found himself back in the black void behind his eye lids.

Except, that wasn’t quite the case, he looked down at his hands, which were visible against the void. Confused, he turned around, just in time to see his three friends, Chloe, Rich and Christine looking back at him. They all seemed just as perturbed by what was happening.

Maybe, if Jeremy was being rational, he would have assumed that this was just a hallucination. But he panicked at the sight of his friends, immeasurable distances away thanks to the black void they all stood in.

He saw the other three lunge forward toward him as he did the same, but then he was ripped away by the worst pain he’d ever felt in his life. Worse than the shocks the Squip used to keep him in line, worse than his arm breaking after falling down the stairs, worse than being kicked in the growing. He was sure he was dying.

Which was why after everything, when he opened his eyes to the sight of Michael standing over him, a scared expression resting on his face, he’d assumed that his version of hell looked just like the real world.

“Hey. There… Buddy,” Michael spoke softly and stepped closer to him. “You alright? We can take you to the hospital…”

Jeremy took a breath, felt his chest raise and fall. Maybe he wasn’t dead.

He closed his eyes for a second to listen to the world around him. He could hear Michael panic and then shift down next to him before calling for Jenna, but he couldn’t hear the music from the party anymore. Just the crickets and his own tinnitus the Squip insisted it wasn’t the cause of.

He called for the Squip, once. Then twice. Then he opened his eyes at the realization of what Brooke had forced him to drink.

His eyes shot open again and Michael flinched, now sitting cross legged by Jeremy’s head. Jeremy didn’t care as a smile spread on his face. “It’s gone.” He spoke.

Michael let out a sigh and his shoulders fell. “Yeah, it’s gone,” He confirmed. Jeremy hummed and closed his eyes again, enjoying the silence in a way he never had before. Suddenly silence wasn’t just a canvas for the Squip to lay Jeremy’s insecurities bare on.

“Michael? How is he?” Someone Jeremy assumed was Jenna spoke. Then it occurred to Jeremy, there were two things he’d always wanted to do to Michael that the Squip had never let him.

He found it in himself to move and sit up, which might not have been the best call with how his vision swam when he did.

“Michael!” Jeremy yelled, not even giving the other boy a chance to reply before crashing their lips together. Jeremy wondered if it even really counted as a kiss, but he needed to get the other thing out too, maybe he should have started with it instead.

“I’m so, sorry,” Jeremy didn’t see Michael’s reaction before the lack of blood in his head finally caught up with him.

His vision went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “So just say your lines, I know you’ll hate mine! It’s not the first time, so I know that we will be fine,”
> 
> I'll be honest with all of you, this isn't where the story is supposed to end. I had like two other arcs planned out but I only wrote one down and since I've moved away to college, my motivation to write for BMC has died considerably. 
> 
> I'll definitely try and get out the next chapter because this would be the worst place to end it. After that, I might keep writing, just cus I like the story that's in my head but no promises.
> 
> And really I can't thank you all enough for reading this, I had my misgivings about trying to post anything in such a dead fandom but you're all so active it's amazing! It's been a joy to write! <3


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